Cy Twombly Retrospective at Tate Modern Explores Contradictions and Legacy

A major retrospective of American artist Cy Twombly is on view at Tate Modern in London until September 14, curated by Sir Nicholas Serota. The exhibition, titled "Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons," highlights Twombly's career spanning over half a century, featuring large-scale paintings and elemental sculptures that blend informality with intellectual ambition. Twombly, who turned 80 in 2008, is noted for works that oscillate between brutalism and classicism, often incorporating scribbled text and references to poetry and myth. The show includes early pieces like "Criticism" (1955), created during studio games with peers Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and later works such as "Hero and Leandro" (1981–84), which evokes JMW Turner's influence. Twombly's sculpture, made from found objects and often coated in white paint, emphasizes a primitive classicism, as seen in "Untitled (In Memory of Alvaro De Campos)" (2002). The retrospective will travel to the Bilbao Guggenheim in fall 2008 and then to Rome's National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, marking the first major survey since his 1994 MoMA retrospective. Twombly's work has been influential for artists like Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, and Anselm Kiefer, particularly in the 1980s. The exhibition concludes with the "Bacchus" (2005) series, which revisits his early abstractions while engaging with Homeric themes. A version of this review originally appeared in the New York Sun on July 17, 2008.