As Cy Twombly’s art continues its upward curve on the market, his foundation continues to smartly bolster the museum representation of his work. The Philadelphia Museum has his painting cycle, Fifty Days at Iliam. Now it will have five sculptures from the foundation and one from a private donation that the artist himself considered related to the larger work.
Here’s the Times coverage of the announcement:
Twombly’s sculptures were not highly sought-after during his lifetime. (“I love my sculptures, and I was lucky I had them for 50 years because no one would look at them,” Twombly told Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate museums, in 2007.) But in 2011 the Museum of Modern Art acquired seven sculptures and last year the Art Institute of Chicago acquired a major early one. Before his death, Twombly picked out the five bronzes as ones he felt should be displayed in Philadelphia in the “Iliam” galleries, whose 10 towering canvases were inspired by Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s “Iliad.” “Cy’s sculptures have been very important for other artists, for artists working now,” said Carlos Basualdo, the museum’s curator of contemporary art. “And we’re so lucky that he was involved in choosing these. It grew out of a conversation about which pieces would play well with the paintings.”
5 Twombly Sculptures to Join His Paintings at Philadelphia Museum (The New York Times)
