Attributed to Cy Twombly, private collection, no coa medium: oil measurements:40"wx60"h no frame, mint condition Biography: Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.Motherwell arranged Twombly's first solo exhibition, which was organized by the Samuel M. Kootz Gallery in New York in 1951. At this time his work was influenced by Kline's black-and-white gestural expressionism, as well as Paul Klee's imagery. In 1952, Twombly received a grant from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts which enabled him to travel to North Africa, Spain, Italy, and France. He spent this journey in Africa and Europe with Robert Rauschenberg. In 1954, he served in the U.S. Army as a cryptographer in Washington, D.C., and would frequently travel to New York during periods of leave. From 1955 through 1956, he taught at the Southern Seminary and Junior College in Buena Vista, Virginia, currently known as Southern Virginia University; during the summer vacations, Twombly would travel to New York to paint in his Williams Street apartment. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel and Jean-Michel Basquiat. After his return in 1953, Twombly served in the U.S. army as a cryptologist, an activity that left a distinct mark on his artistic style.From 1955 to 1959, he worked in New York, where he became a prominent figure among a group of artists including Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he was sharing a studio,and Jasper Johns. Exposure to the emerging New York School purged figurative aspects from his work, encouraging a simplified form of abstraction. He became fascinated with tribal art, using the painterly language of the early 1950s to invoke primitivism, reversing the normal evolution of the New York School. Twombly soon developed a technique of gestural drawing characterized by thin white lines on a dark canvas that appear to be scratched onto the surface. He would apply bitumen on the canvas in a quick and coarse fashion, making the painting tactile and scarred with his energetic, gestural lines that would become his signature style. He stopped making sculptures in 1959 and did not take up sculpting again until 1976.