Cy Twombly

Characterized by monumentality and flamboyant colour, these works often use large formats to accommodate broad and sweeping motions. Sometimes their surfaces are dense and heavily worked; sometimes they are expressively fluid, incorporating chance elements such as extravagant drips of paint. Favoured motifs such as ships, flowers and mythological references are revisited in new contexts and allowed to interact in unusual ways. Like his earlier output, however, these images continue to engage viewers in an active dialogue, resisting easy interpretation and offering up multiple layers of potential meaning. For Twombly, the very action of painting was fundamental: it was the moment when physical impulses and visual imagination came together on the canvas. Concluding with the series known as 'The Last Paintings', completed only a few months before his death in 2011, these are memorable works in which the gestural intensity of this great artist is vividly preserved.