This presentation features twenty-seven works from a gift to the museum by the Cy Twombly Foundation. The works highlighted in the exhibition cover thirty years of the artist’s activity, from the 1950s to the 1980s and feature a broad range of materials, from graphite to oil paint; techniques such as drawing and collage; and themes that are fundamental to his entire practice, such as classical antiquity, eroticism, and nature.

The works in this show, a number of which will be on view for the first time, include a series of abstract landscapes from the 1980s, two untitled works from 1970 that resemble the artist’s “blackboard paintings” on view at the Cy Twombly Gallery, and Narcissus, 1975, a collage of paper, with oil, charcoal, and wax crayon on paper with the title of the work written in large capital letters across the bottom.

The Gift of Drawing: Cy Twombly is curated by Edouard Kopp, John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Chief Curator, Menil Drawing Institute.

Major funding for this exhibition is generously provided by Sheila Noeth and Ted Dohmen. Additional support comes from Eddie and Chinhui Allen; Clare Casademont and Michael Metz; Suzanne Deal Booth; Hilda Curran; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Janet and Paul Hobby; Leslie and Shannon Sasser; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1986. Acrylic and oil on handmade paper, 21 × 28 in. (53.3 × 71.1 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston, Gift of the Cy Twombly Foundation. © Cy Twombly Foundation