Actually, when I saw Cy Twombly, he wasn’t naked, and neither was I. I’d gone to Houston for work, right after graduating from college, and I had an extra day, so I set out to find this Rothko Chapel I’d heard about. No luck, or maybe it’s that low-slung grey clapboard building. With the blackboard Twombly in the lobby. Holy moley, what is this place?
It was, of course, the Menil Collection, and while I was standing in front of one of my favorite paintings, a tall, elderly man came around the corner from behind it and stood there, too. I looked at him, then at the painting, then back. “Excuse me, are you Cy Twombly?” “Yes I am.” I babbled something—I was obviously clueless but well-meaning–and he was gracious, then he left.
I later learned he had come to do an interview for the exhibition catalogue of “Rauschenberg: The Early 1950’s,” a tremendous show which was organized by Walter Hopps at the Menil, and which traveled to the Guggenheim. (Remember when the Guggenheim used to have good shows?)
I was reminded of this incident by the article in the Times about the panoply of Twombly shows in Houston at the moment. The artist told of a Menil guard who came upon a French woman standing naked and transfixed in front of a large Twombly canvas.
A Celebratory Splash for an Enigmatic Figure [nyt]
Buy Hopps’s 1991 Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s catalogue for –sheesh, $255?? [it’s that and more–up to $400 on abebooks]
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the making of, by greg allen