Exhibition dates: 29th June – 25th September 2011
Curator: Dr. Nicholas Cullinan, Curator of International Modern Art at Tate Modern.
Many thankx to the Dulwich Picture Gallery for allowing me to publish the images in the posting. Please click on them for a larger version of the image.
Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008)
Cy and Relics
1952
Photograph
© The Rauschenberg Foundation
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)
The Triumph of Pan
c. 1636
Pen and ink with wash over stylus and black chalk
581 x 410 x 29 mm
Lent by Her Majesty the Queen. The Royal Collection
© 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Bacchanalia-Fall (5 Days in November) Blatt 4, InvNr. UAB 457
1977
Collage, oil, chalk, gouache, on fabriano paper, graph paper
101.2 x 150.5cm
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Museum Brandhorst, München
Leihgeber: Udo Brandhorst
© Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Pan
1975
148 x 100cm
Private Collection
© Cy Twombly, Courtesy: Cy Twombly Archive
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)
The Triumph of David
1628-1631
© By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Hero and Leandro
1985
202 x 254cm
Private Collection, Courtesy Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich
© Cy Twombly
“I would’ve liked to have been Poussin, if I’d had a choice, in another time.”
.
Cy Twombly
Dulwich Picture Gallery is proud to announce a revelatory exhibition of the work of Cy Twombly and Nicolas Poussin. Organised to celebrate the Bicentenary of the Gallery, this major show will explore, for the first time, the unexpected yet numerous parallels and affinities between the two artists. The exhibition will draw upon the world-class permanent collection of works at Dulwich Picture Gallery by Nicolas Poussin, alongside other works from major collections around the world by both Poussin and Twombly.
In 1624 and 1957, the two artists, aged around thirty, moved to Rome. Nicolas Poussin and Cy Twombly subsequently spent the majority of their lives in the Eternal City, and went on to become the pre-eminent painters of their day. Rather than recent exhibitions that have sought to compare and contrast old masters with contemporary artists through superficial visual appearances, this groundbreaking show will instead juxtapose works which may seem radically disparate in terms of style, yet ones that share deep and timeless interests. Both Poussin and Twombly were artists of prodigious talent who found in the classical heritage of Rome a life-long subject. Both spent their lives studying, revivifying and making newly relevant for their own eras antiquity, ancient history, classical mythology, Renaissance painting, poetry and the imaginary, idealised realm of Arcadia.
Curated by Dr. Nicholas Cullinan, Curator of International Modern Art at Tate Modern, the exhibition examines how Twombly and Poussin, although separated by three centuries, nonetheless engaged with the same sources and will explore the overlapping subjects that the two artists have shared. It will consist of around thirty carefully-chosen paintings, drawings and sculptures, structured thematically around six sections devoted to key shared themes, from both artists’ early fascinations with Arcadia and the pastoral when they first moved to Rome, Venus and Eros, Anxiety and Theatricality, Apollo, Parnassus and Poetry, Pan and the Bacchanalia, through to the theme of The Four Seasons.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the British premiere of Tacita Dean’s new 16mm film portrait of Cy Twombly, Edwin Parker (2011). The film documents Twombly in his studio in Lexington, Virginia, and follows on from Dean’s series of filmed depictions of subjects such as the choreographer Merce Cunningham, the poet Michael Hamburger and the artist Mario Merz, where the inner life of the sitter is implied through their physical demeanour and surroundings. A series of talks will also accompany the exhibition, including Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate, in conversation with Dr. Nicholas Cullinan on the topic of curating Twombly, and Malcolm Bull (Ruskin School of Drawing, University of Oxford) and T. J. Clark (Professor Emeritus of Modern Art at the University of California, Berkeley; and Visiting Professor, University of York) who will discuss the work of Poussin and Twombly and the themes raised by the exhibition.
Ian Dejardin, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery explains that the exhibition “fits in with a philosophy I have pursued here – that exhibitions can conduct a dialogue with the permanent collection. In the past Howard Hodgkin, Lucian Freud and Paula Rego have all hung their paintings within the collection, so Poussin and Twombly seemed like a natural extension of those experiments.”
The exhibition has received enthusiastic support and loans from major private and public collections around the world, including The National Gallery and Tate in London; The Royal Collection; The Duke of Devonshire; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Museo del Prado, Madrid; The Brandhorst Museum, Munich and The Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition has been developed in close collaboration with Cy Twombly himself, and will include works that have never been exhibited before.
Press release from the Dulwich Picture Gallery
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)
Rinaldo and Armida
c. 1630
© By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)
The Nurture of Jupiter
mid 1630s
© By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Quattro Stagioni: Primavera
1993-1995
Acrylic, oil, crayon and pencil on canvas
3230 x 1996 x 67 mm
Tate: Purchased with assistance from the American Fund for the Tate Gallery and Tate Members 2002
© Tate, London, 2010, © Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Quattro Stagioni: Estate
1993-1995
Acrylic and pencil on canvas
3241 x 2250 x 67 mm
Tate: Purchased with assistance from the American Fund for the Tate Gallery and Tate Members 2002
© Tate, London, 2010, © Cy Twombly
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)
Venus and Mercury
c. 1627/1629
© By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Quattro Stagioni: Autunno
1993-1995
Acrylic, oil, crayon and pencil on canvas
3230 x 2254 x 67 mm
Tate: Purchased with assistance from the American Fund for the Tate Gallery and Tate Members 2002
© Tate, London, 2010, © Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly (American, 1928-2011)
Quattro Stagioni: Inverno
1993-1995
Acrylic, oil and pencil on canvas
3229 x 2300 x 67mm
Tate: Purchased with assistance from the American Fund for the Tate Gallery and Tate Members 2002
© Tate, London, 2010, © Cy Twombly
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