Art News: Artist Cy Twombly Dead at 83

Art News: American artist Cy Twombly is dead. He died in Rome at the age of 83.  The artist had been battling cancer for several years.  Cy Twombly was born in Lexington, Virginia on April 25, 1928.
Cy Twombly belongs to the group of internationally acknowledged artists. The Cy Twombly Gallery opened in Houston in 1995, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano in co-operation with the artist.

Cy Twombly lived and worked in Rome and Gaeta, Italy, as well as in Lexington, USA. His son, Cyrus Alessandro Twombly is also a painter.

Twombly's paintings are in-between drawing and painting. Many of his paintings of the late 1960s are reminiscent of a school blackboard on which someone has practiced cursive. His paintings of the late 1950s, early 1960s might reference a long term accumulation of graffiti such as one would see on a bathroom wall. Twombly had at this point discarded representational subject-matter, citing the line or smudge with its own history as its proper subject.  This trend continued in abstract art and influenced many young painters of the time. 

In a 1994 retrospective of Twombly's work, the curator described it as “influential among artists.".