The Menil Collection The Menil Collection

Cy Twombly painted this work in 1954 while stationed in Washington, DC, as a cryptologist in the United States Army. This was a significant moment in the artist’s early career. Serving as a codebreaker by day, he began to scribble at night, inventing illegible notations that he used in his work. The experience of drawing in darkness proved pivotal to his artistic development. He came to believe that drawing was not about recording what one sees with one’s eyes but a way to convey emotion. As Twombly would later remark, “The line is the feeling.” The works from this period are characterized by rambling gray lines pulled through thick passages of cream-colored paint. With its energetic graphite contours scratched into the paint, this work brilliantly exemplifies his so-called “blind drawing.”