Oil on canvas, framed. Featuring abstract composition. Signed cy twombly on the lower right corner. Attributed to Cy Twombly (1928-2011, American). 51 x 44 cm (20 x 17 inches). Framed size: 63 x 57 cm (24.8 x 22.4 inches). PROVENANCE: Southern Ontario estate

Cy Twombly (1928-2011) was a seminal American artist who came of age immediately following the Abstract Expressionist generation. His iconic large-scale paintings consisted of looping marks scribbled and smeared on raw canvas or linen. Twombly’s practice melded his interest in Roman and Greek mythological stories, including Leda and the Swan, with the frenetic doodling of chalk on a blackboard. “My line is childlike but not childish. It is very difficult to fake,” he once explained. “To get that quality you need to project yourself into the child's line. It has to be felt.” Born Edwin Parker Twombly Jr. on April 25, 1928 in Lexington, VA, he went on to attend the Art Students League of New York where he met Robert Rauschenberg. It was Rauschenberg who recommended that he enroll at the Black Mountain College. While at the college, Twombly studied under Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, who introduced him to the work of Paul Klee. From 1960 onward, the artist spent the majority of his time between Rome and the medieval port city of Gaeta, where he steeped himself in thoughts of the Mediterranean Sea and ancient naval battles that had taken place there. He died on July 5, 2011 in Rome, Italy. In 2016, the Centre Georges Pompidou held a major exhibition on the Twombly, which included an assortment of 140 works ranging from sculptures and drawings to paintings and photographs. Today, the artist’s works can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Courtauld Institute in London, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which in 1989 devoted an entire room to his 10-painting suite Fifty Days at Iliam (1978).

All lots that do not carry established documented provenance nor any past record of auction history record are described in the catalog as attributed .

All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:

Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : The work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.

In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century : This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).