Cy Twombly (1928-2011) — a celebrated painter and sculptor, but photographer as well — was American-born and educated, yet affectionately bound to European culture and sensibility. Inspired by Greek mythology and Mediterranean history, his work is rooted in the link between the past and present. While his musings on the past is at times blatant, like the litany of Greek figures ("Apollo Musagetes Phoebus Smintheus Agyieus Platanistius") scrawled on canvas, his reverence for history is more subtle in his photographic work. 

The photographs, although chiefly serving as ideas and models for paintings or sculptures, reflect his thoughts on the past and the complex beauty of antiquity, in their own right. The photographs — soft, ethereal, colorful celebrations of fleeting moments — are inherently poetic. The photographs here make it clear how photography informed Twombly's successful career. We invite you to take time and pleasure in what you find in them.

— Catherine Rierson

Photos courtesy of The Lambert Collection in Avignon, France.