For TBT: This review originally published in the early 1990s:
"Cy Twombly Over Picasso?"
by
F. Lennox Campello
Published in the Potomac News and Dimensions Magazine
Twombly over Picasso? The National Gallery of Art's latest
acquisition of an exceedingly boring painting by Virginia painter Cy
Twombly succinctly brings to light a perfect example of the sort of poor
decisions made in the seclusion of museum walls which exemplify why the
general public is often at odds with our arts intelligentsia.
Cy Twombly's "Untitled (Bolsena)" was acquired on Friday the
13th of October by the National Gallery of Art at a cost of about one
million dollars. The gallery's Collector's Committee also considered a
Picasso, a Giacometti and a Baselitz before choosing the Twombly
painting, which was aptly described by Washington Post art critic Paul
Richards as "evoking the butt-end days of New York action painting. Or a wall besides a public pay phone."
Although it is clear that the Twombly piece will now join the National Gallery's ever growing "Gee, Mom, I can do that!" collection
of art, what isn't clear is the rationale for picking Twombly over
Picasso or Giacometti. It has been said that Twombly's main claim to
fame is his early associations with Jasper Johns and Robert
Rauschenberg; if this is his main springboard into the walls of the
National Gallery, then it is clear to me that a pathetic mistake has
been made by the gallery's Collector's Committee. As a matter of fact
one would be hard pressed to pick a Johns or a Rauschenberg over a
Picasso!
A new Picasso acquisition would have brought the National Gallery
some more public interest, and a price tag of a million dollars seems
almost a bargain for perhaps the greatest painter of all time. Whatever
his detractors, Picasso is a recognized entity which would attract
people who both like and dislike his work. I suspect Twombly's
"champions" are not enough to prevent this latest acquisition from being
ridiculed by the public and dismissed by the critics.
It is also clear
that the piece was vastly overpriced, as a similar Twombly sold less
than two weeks ago in New York for $167,000. It would be interesting to
see in which basement of the National Gallery this scrawling will
gather dust in a few years. When it is put into storage, I hope it is
well marked as a piece of art, or it may accidentally resurface on a
wall next to a pay phone at the Smithsonian Metro Station.
