Cy Twombly, Untitled (Bacchus) 2008. Tate. © Cy Twombly Foundation.
Discover the work of Cy Twombly, whose pared-back approach engages with ancient history and myth.
Cy Twombly was a North American artist who spent much of his career in Italy. He was fascinated by the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. In his paintings he often referred to historical or mythological figures, or included fragments of classical poetry.
The three paintings in this room are named after Bacchus. He was the Roman god of wine and intoxication, known to the Greeks as Dionysus. His rituals involved drunkenness and ecstatic dancing. In ancient myth, he was also associated with violence and his followers were depicted as eating the raw flesh of animals.
In the 1950s Twombly wrote that the act of painting could come out of ‘one ecstatic impulse’. Made 50 years later, these swirls of paint convey a similar intensity. They were made with a brush attached to the end of a pole, enabling Twombly to capture the energy of an unbroken movement across a large canvas. The brush was soaked in paint, which dripped down the canvas, its red colour evoking both wine and blood.
The sculptures shown here resemble ancient artefacts such as chariots or ships. Twombly originally made them from found objects and discarded pieces of wood, before casting them in bronze.
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1958
This is one of a series of large paintings Rothko made for a fashionable New York restaurant. By layering the paint, he created subtle relationships between the muted colours. They are much darker in mood than his previous works. He was influenced by the atmosphere of a library designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo (1475–1564). Rothko recalled the feeling of being ‘trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up’. A restaurant, he decided, was the wrong setting for these paintings. Instead, he presented the series to Tate gallery.
Gallery label, June 2020
1/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1959
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
2/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1959
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
3/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
4/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
5/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
6/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1958
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
7/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon 1959
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
8/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1958
In 1958, Mark Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of works for a restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building. He constructed a scaffold in his studio to match the site’s dimensions, allowing him to paint at scale. He said that his paintings, ‘are involved with the scale of human feelings, the human drama, as much of it as I can express’. The resulting works were much darker in mood than Rothko’s previous paintings. The bright and intense colours of his earlier canvases shifted to maroon, dark red and black. In 1960, after more than two years of work on the project and with a studio of completed paintings, Rothko withdrew from the commission. He felt the exclusive environment of the restaurant was an inappropriate setting for his artworks. He later presented the series to Tate.
Gallery label, April 2025
9/9
artworks in Cy Twombly
Art in this room
Mark Rothko
Black on Maroon
1958
Mark Rothko
Black on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Black on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Red on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Red on Maroon
1959
Mark Rothko
Red on Maroon
1959
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