I was confused by this Cy Twombly work on paper which I saw for the first time this morning via @paintedout via @octavio-world, and which sold at Christie’s in 2004. It was very similar to a Twombly that belonged to Emily Fisher Landau, and which sold at Sotheby’s in 2024.
First off, when were these made? Apr 24 1983 AND Apr 24 1985? When was Twombly in Lexington? His mother and sister were still there in the mid-80s, but not in Silverwood, and he didn’t have a house of his own there until 1994. Emily’s 14 Papers is not described as two joined sheets, but it clearly is. The Christie’s 14 Papers is not described as oil and acrylic, but it clearly is. Christie’s does feel right about the red felt tip pen, though?
[NEXT DAY GET REAL UPDATE] Thanks to greg.org hero Claudio Santambrogio for helping me to keep things real here. He first flagged my error about Christie’s error: in 2004 they dated their 14 Papers drawing to 1983, not, as I misremembered, as 1982. But from there we went through a whole series of exchanges about what is said about these drawings vs. what they actually say, and honestly, the situation is, as Claudio so neatly put it, “as messy as CT’s handwriting.” So I’ve added notes to the captions above, and at the end of the post below, to sort things out. When I get my hands on Yvon Lambert’s 1997 drawings CR, I’ll add that second/third semi-authoritative source.
It really feels like Twombly was working on these and annotating them at different moments, and Apr 24th 1985 does seem like one of them. [Twombly’s birthday is April 25, btw.] The Foundation’s chronology notes only that Twombly visited New York and Lexington in early 1982; there’s work made in NYC from February and May, and purported Lexington drawings from 27 Feb and March, so does that bracket it to March/ApriL? It also says he made work there called—for the only time—Notes from Silverwood. The next visit is not until 1993, when he received an honorary doctorate from Washington & Lee University.
I went to the drawings catalogue raisonné, and it helped only a little. There are seventeen works on paper made in Lexington between 1982 and 1985, but only two are dated 1982, the time of his actual visit. And one of those (Sylvae, cat no. 94) has the same 1981-82 date range and metric dimensions (100 x 70 cm) as works made or completed in Bassano in Teverina. The other (Untitled, cat. no 95, 30 x 22 1/4 in.) matches the dimensions of the other 15 Lexington works. Which are all dated 1985.
There are only ten 14 Papers (cat nos. 204-213). They’re all roughly square, with the same composition: the lower section, the one with the writing, is either folded or cut and collaged together. Sometimes there’s painting over this seam; often/always, there are marks that have been cropped or covered.
[UPDATE:
Cat. no. 204 looks like it says Jun 24 85, or (A)pri(l?) 24. Because the pri does look like the pri in April on Cat. no. 205.
Cat. nos. 206, 207, and 211 say April 24 1985.
Cat no. 208 just says 24 85; the April is silent.
Cat no. 209 looks like it says 4/29 85, but let’s agree it’s 4/24, is maybe how we are in this boat in the first place.
The thing that works in Cat. no. 212’s favor for an April reading is that the April on both Cat nos. 211 & 213 have horizontal ligatures connecting their A to their pril.
The A on Cat. no. 213 is, in fact, a star drawn with a single line: ⚝pril 24 85.]
It’s not just me, and it’s not just you. The CR’s editor, Nicola del Roscio, notes that the “exact date” of the ten 14 Papers “is uncertain. The artist probably commenced working on them in 1982 and finished or redated them later.” This logical conclusion feels equally applicable to the two other Lexington drawings with the same cut&pasted or folded construction (cat nos. 214 & 215), which are almost completely covered with a similarly dark, overpainted whorl.
And it feels applicable to the four other Lexington/1985 works (cat nos. 200-203), which are all 30 x 22 in. storms of red with browns encroaching from the right. It feels possible that all the Lexington drawings began something like this; reds peek out from under the dark green and brown and grey edges of all the 14 Papers, which were painted over, cut down, and inscribed, not necessarily in that order. The 2004 Christie’s 14 Papers feels like this most of all: both an encroaching green and fiery red can be seen through the smoky overpainting.
As for Silverwood, the editor notes, “it is a historical house that that the artist rented in Lexington as a studio.” According to this YouTube video by one of the descendants of the confederate general who built the house, as recently as 2015, it had been converted to apartments. [Zillow now shows it has been converted back to single family.] It is around the corner from the home he grew up in. So whether Twombly’s mother didn’t want him painting in the house, or he just needed some space away, to work, Silverwood was a convenient refuge.
The trajectory of these works, meanwhile, went from bold and bright to dark and deep.
Previously, related: Cy Twombly spending his last years scouring the yardsales of the backroads of Virginia looking for the first painting he ever made