Note I

Printer Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc.

Publisher Published by Universal Limited Art Editions American

1967

Not on view

Central to Twombly’s art are allusions to processes, gestures, and forms of writing. Whether tight and multiplied, as in Note I, or enlarged and loose, as in Untitled I, made the same year, Twombly’s rhythmic glyphs and flowing lines evoke a range of associations, including graffiti, children’s doodles, and exercises for learning script, such as the Palmer Method, a muscle training technique that promises greater efficiency and uniformity in handwriting. Twombly’s inimitable marks, however, lack the perfected regularity promised by such exercises. Rather, by showing variations in the slanted, looped forms, densely layered in regulated horizontal lines compressed in a tight rectangular space, Twombly gestures to the fatigue generated by the act of writing, while also revealing the poetry possessed by the wiry and irregular etched forms.

Artwork Details

Title: Note I
Artist: Cy Twombly (American, Lexington, Virginia 1928–2011 Rome)
Printer: Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc.
Publisher: Published by Universal Limited Art Editions
Date: 1967
Medium: Etching
Dimensions: Sheet: 25 9/16 × 20 1/16 in. (65 × 51 cm)
Image: 8 3/4 × 10 3/4 in. (22.3 × 27.3 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Stewart S. MacDermott Fund, 1968
Object Number: 68.523.2
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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In the same medium

From the same time and place

Dutch Interior, Cy Twombly American, Wax crayon, lead pencil, oil on canvas — Dutch Interior
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1962

Gray and Brass, John Sloan American, Oil on canvas, American — Gray and Brass
John Sloan
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Nocturne: Palaces, James McNeill Whistler American, Etching and drypoint; printed in dark brown ink on drum mounted medium weight ivory laid paper. — Nocturne: Palaces
James McNeill Whistler
1879–80

Untitled, from the "New York Collection for Stockholm", Cy Twombly American, Screenprint and lithograph — Untitled, from the "New York Collection for Stockholm"
Cy Twombly
Publisher Experiments in Art and Technology
Printer Styria Studio
1973

Necklace, Meta Overbeck American, Gold, emeralds, Montana sapphires, topazes, enamel, American — Necklace
Meta Overbeck
Louis C. Tiffany
Manufacturer Tiffany & Co.
ca. 1914–15

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