One work: a multipart work Souvenir de L’Ile des Saintes, 1979, watercolour and gouache on paper.

For over fifty years Cy Twombly has explored references from nature, literature, classical history and mythology through poetic, gestural painting and abstracted sculptures. His lyrical use of letters and words as formal elements in abstract compositions blurs the relationship between drawing and painting and emphasises the action of mark-making.

Souvenir de l’Ile des Saintes, 1979 is a suite of eight works on paper and represents the artist’s first experiments with watercolour. The vibrant daubs of colour found in the first sheet are transformed on subsequent pages into cloud-like washes, conveying memory as transient, sensual delight.