Cy Twombly (1928-2011) - Artemisia

This work is an scarce original exhibition poster crested by the American artist Cy Twombly for Artemisia, a group exhibition held in 1980 at Galleria Ugo Ferranti in Rome. Measuring 70 × 50 cm, the poster was produced at the time as an original offset lithograph on wove paper, fully preserving Twombly’s distinctive sense of gestural writing and improvisational expression.

Having relocated to Italy in 1957, Twombly spent much of his life in Rome, where Mediterranean culture, classical mythology, and personal memory became deeply embedded within his artistic language. In this sense, the exhibition may also be understood as a presentation on the artist’s spiritual “home ground.” The exhibition information was handwritten and composed by Twombly himself, transforming typography into an integral pictorial element through his signature scribbled lines and rhythmic, expressive marks. The drifting, diagonal arrangement of the text appears to move gently toward the lower right corner of the sheet, creating a delicate balance between structure and spontaneity, and evoking a poetic tension between language, abstraction, and painterly gesture.

Artemisia was organized by Galleria Ugo Ferranti, a gallery established in 1974 and operated by Massimo d’Alessandro, which quickly emerged as an important venue for European and American Conceptual art. Twombly’s design for the exhibition poster not only reflects the energetic and allusive visual language characteristic of his practice, but also reveals the intimate relationship between personal mythology, script-like mark-making, and abstraction that runs throughout his oeuvre.

The work is further documented in the important publication Collection Lambert, Volume V: Cy Twombly (ISBN 978-2-330-16871-1), jointly published in 2022 by Actes Sud and Collection Lambert. The volume surveys approximately thirty works by Twombly held in the Collection Lambert in Avignon, encompassing his paintings, graffiti-like linear compositions, and works inspired by ancient mythology, further underscoring the significance of this exhibition poster within both the artist’s oeuvre and broader art historical discourse.