The large black sleek Mercedes stops and, as the chauffeur opens the car door and then waits, the elegantly dressed lady walks purposely across the pavement towards the shop, as the door opens invisibly in front of her.  This is Mayfair with New Bond Street at its heart as the exclusive and expensive shopping street that attracts customers from around the world.  Imagine how perplexed the impeccably dressed lady, used to perfection in everything, might be if she looked and saw the rough, informal, apparently chaotic sculptures that passers by can see through large windows near Berkeley Square only a few minutes away.

American artist Cy Twombly (1928 – 2011) is perhaps best known for his large scale paintings with free-flowing swirling lines using limited colours; less so for his sculptures.  Well done to the Gagosian, in association with the Cy Twombly Foundation, for the exhibition of sculptures which fill the gallery in Grosvenor Hill, with some interesting juxtapositions against the external environment outside.

Twombly’s sculptures were typically made from assembling old materials he found around him, in a very sustainable way.  He spent much of his life in Italy and took some inspiration from classical art, in particular the use of white paint to unify his sculptures as with white marble in classical Greece, but with a different twist – these are not smooth and perfectly formed works by Phidias, Polyclitus or Praxiteles, but unique assemblages.