Cy Twombly was born on April 25, 1928 in Lexington Virginia. From 1947 to 1951 Twombly studied at the School of the Museum of Fine arts, Boston, at Washington and Lee University in Lexington and at the Art Student League in New York. While in New York, Twombly met Robert Rauschenberg, who encouraged him to attend the Black Mountain College in North Carolina, which the artist attended from 1951 and 1952 and studied under Franz Kline, Robert Motherwelll, and Ben Shahn.
Twombly had his first solo exhibition at the Kootz Gallery, New York in 1951. Twombly's works were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1964 and his paintings and works on paper have been the subject of numerous retrospectives, the fist being at the Milwaukee Art Center in 1968. In 1995, the artist was honored with the opening of the Cy Twombly Gallery, an annex of the Menil Collection, a museum specifically devoted to the artist's oeuvre. Cy Twombly's works are included in the permanent collections of many leading museums.
In 1959, Twombly settled in Rome. He currently lives and works between Rome and Lexington, Virginia.
