The focus of the exhibition is on the paintings of the 1950s to 1970s belonging to the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel, supplemented with loans from the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation and the Daros Collection, which has a significant body of work by Twombly at its disposal. Together they exemplify the developmental trajectory of the artist’s early period. The show opens with a painting of intimate format dating from 1954, when Twombly was still in New York, as is evident from the compact painting and gestural brushwork, both of which bespeak the influence of Abstract Expressionism. The paintings produced from 1957 onward, most of them in Rome, follow on seamlessly as the dark ground is abandoned in favor of brighter, bigger, landscape formats, liberally invested with rhythm by lines drawn in pencil, chalk, or oil. The pictures, it seems, are themselves testimony to the condition experienced at the time of their creation, even if certain corrective interventions—the numerous crossingsout and pentimenti, for example—allow the discarded forms to remain present. The result is an ambivalence between disclosure and concealment.
Cy TwomblyKunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Main address:
Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für GegenwartskunstWells Fargo CenterSt. Alban-Graben 16 / St. Alban-Rheinweg 604010Basel, SwitzerlandKunstmuseum Basel, Museum für GegenwartskunstWells Fargo CenterSt. Alban-Graben 16 / St. Alban-Rheinweg 604010Basel, SwitzerlandThe focus of the exhibition is on the paintings of the 1950s to 1970s belonging to the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel, supplemented with loans from the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation and the Daros Collection, which has a significant body of work by Twombly at its disposal. Together they exemplify the developmental trajectory of the artist’s early period. The show opens with a painting of intimate format dating from 1954, when Twombly was still in New York, as is evident from the compact painting and gestural brushwork, both of which bespeak the influence of Abstract Expressionism. The paintings produced from 1957 onward, most of them in Rome, follow on seamlessly as the dark ground is abandoned in favor of brighter, bigger, landscape formats, liberally invested with rhythm by lines drawn in pencil, chalk, or oil. The pictures, it seems, are themselves testimony to the condition experienced at the time of their creation, even if certain corrective interventions—the numerous crossingsout and pentimenti, for example—allow the discarded forms to remain present. The result is an ambivalence between disclosure and concealment. Book tickets
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