I had the great pleasure of working with Cy Twombly on commissioned bronze replicas of his sculptures a few years before he passed away.  He was quiet and reserved, which was unexpected since he was, in fact, discussed in my Art History books when I was in college.  I was expecting a loud, eccentric quirky artist type, and he was the complete opposite.  He, and his faithful assistant, Butch would drive up from Lexington to the foundry several times to view the progress on the sculptures.  These sculptures were going to private collections or museums.

Twombly influenced artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Francesco Clemente.  He was best-known for typically large-scale, freely-scribbled, calligraphic and graffiti-like works on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors.  He branched out into photography and sculpture later in life.

Travis Jeppesen once declared Twombly to be “the greatest American painter of the twentieth century, and the greatest painter after Picasso, period.”

My brief encounter with Cy Twombly will always be a fond memory.