Cy Twombly (1928-2011) was born in Lexington, Virginia, and lived and worked in New York in the early 1950s and at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. After traveling around North Africa, Spain and Italy, he settled in Rome, where he remained for the rest of his life. Christine Kondoleon is George D. and Margo Behrakis Chair, Art of Ancient Greece and Rome, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Kate Nesin is Adjunct Curator, Contemporary Art, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Anne Carson is a poet, essayist, translator, and professor of classical languages and literature. Jennifer R. Gross is Executive Director, Hauser & Wirth Institute. Brooke Holmes is Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics at Princeton University. Mary Jacobus is professor emerita of English at the University of Cambridge and Cornell University, and an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.

Twombly’s invocation of the past asserts our present conviction of artistic immortality.