As of September 20, 2025, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome opens to the public a new room entirely dedicated to Cy Twombly, housing twelve works donated by the Cy Twombly Foundation. The same foundation also funded the renovation of the institution’s restoration laboratory and made possible the launch of an international postgraduate course on the conservation of contemporary works on paper. Three separate interventions that together reach a total value of $42.5 million and mark a significant milestone in the museum’s recent history.
The main core of the donation concerns works. With the opening of the Cy Twombly Room, located in Sector IV of the new chronological and monographic arrangement of the permanent collection, the public will have access to a unique set of works executed between 1957 and 1963, the period when the American artist lived in Rome and developed some of the distinctive features of his research. The donation, valued at $39.5 million, includes Untitled (Navel of the World), a large canvas made between 1959 and 1961 with pencil, oil and wax crayons, and the 1959 sculpture Untitled, composed of wood, plastic, plaster and red pigment, among others. The works flank two works already held by the Gallery: 1962’s Second Voyage to Italy (The Fall of Hyperion), a gift from Giorgio Franchetti, and 1958’s Untitled, a bequest from Palma Bucarelli. The new installation, also conceived for educational purposes, thus allows a unified and continuous reading of the artist’s Roman phase, considered among the most important of his career.
The donation also includes a pastel by Pablo Picasso, Nu Debout from 1906, which will be exhibited in Sector II, in dialogue with works by Modigliani and van Dongen. The entry of a work by Picasso further enriches the Gallery’s collection, strengthening the possibility of comparing experiences and languages of the first half of the 20th century.
“The donation of the Cy Twombly Foundation to the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art represents a gesture of great cultural and symbolic value,” says Minister of Culture AlessandroGiuli. “It enriches the public collection with important works and, unlike other historical donations, in this case there is the conscious choice of an American foundation to invest in the future of a national museum, as a sign of trust and recognition of the institutional role of the Ministry of Culture.”
“I would like to thank the Cy Twombly Foundation and in particular President Nicola Del Roscio who wanted to greatly enrich GNAMC’s tangible and intangible heritage with twelve masterpieces and supporting a project that reaffirms its historical vocation as a ’museum of the present,’” says Renata Cristina Mazzantini, director of the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. “Confirming GNAMC’s excellence in Modern and Contemporary art and the Italian restoration system worldwide, the donations open a new season of research, building an innovative platform for international dialogue.”
“The Cy Twombly Foundation is pleased to have donated to the Gallery a group of works that document a crucial moment in the artist’s career, when he lived in Italy for a long time and was inspired by Mediterranean culture,” says Nicola Del Roscio, president of the Cy Twombly Foundation. “Rome, its architecture, music, cinema and the Italian landscape were an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Twombly, which is why it seemed natural for these works to find a home at GNAMC.”
The figure of Twombly, born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1928, is closely linked to Rome, a city where he arrived in 1957 and where he exhibited as early as the following year at Galleria La Tartaruga. The Roman artistic environment became fertile ground for him: among literary suggestions, references to classical myth and graphic and chromatic experimentation, the artist elaborated a language that combined pictorial layering and calligraphic gesture. The Italian years saw the birth of works such as Olympia, Arcadia, Blue Room and Sunset, while in 1961 he developed the famous series Ferragosto and The Italians. The new museum room thus restores direct evidence of his deep connection with Italy.
In addition to the enrichment of the collection, the Cy Twombly Foundation has earmarked $1.475 million for the redevelopment of the Gallery’s restoration laboratory. The space, founded in 1976 and located on the basement floor of the east wing, was in need of a radical overhaul. The project, which will be launched in the coming months, includes an expansion to 470 square meters, a doubling of the current area, the creation of a separate entrance, and the installation of stations for scholars and trainees. There are plans for equipped storage rooms for special materials and waste and new finishes designed to ensure durability and adequate working conditions. The laboratory, named after Cy Twombly, will thus become a point of reference for the training of young restorers, placed in a context equipped with updated technologies and more functional spaces.
“At the same time,” says the Director General Archives, Antonio Tarasco, who currently heads ICPAL, “it will allow a new revitalization of ICPAL, enabling the prestigious Institute to integrate the restoration of ancient materials with modern ones: GNAMC will offer the subject matter and laboratories while the Institute for the Pathology of Archives and Books will offer experience and skills sedimented over nearly a century of life. We are delighted with this collaboration.”
“The collaboration between the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, the Istituto Centrale per la Patologia degli Archivi e del Libro (ICPAL) and the Botticino School of Restoration,” says Salvatore Amura Ad Valore Italia, “gives birth to a very high-profile training project focused on contemporary art and the restoration of works on paper. It is an initiative that highlights an innovative and unique topic in terms of operational methods and project approach and opens new perspectives in the enhancement of global artistic heritage.”
The third donation concerns research and education. With a grant of $1.5 million, provided in annual tranches for the next fifteen years, the Gallery announces the activation of the Cy Twombly International Postgraduate Course in Restoration of Contemporary Works on Paper. The initiative is implemented in collaboration with the Central Institute for the Pathology of Archives and Books (ICPAL) and the Botticino School of Restoration - Valore Italia. The program, which provides scholarships funded by the foundation, is designed to train specialized professionals in a particularly complex field, that of paper conservation in the contemporary environment. In this way, the Gallery becomes part of an international research network, strengthening its role in scientific debate and advanced training.
Taken together, the three donations define an intervention that also invests in conservation and the transmission of expertise. The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, for more than a century a point of reference for Italian and international art, finds in this project an opportunity to broaden its scope, confirming Rome as one of the nerve centers for the study of contemporary art and its conservation practices. The opening of the Cy Twombly Room, the renovation of the restoration laboratory and the start of the new university course thus mark a major step, destined to have lasting effects both for the life of the museum and for the scientific and cultural community.
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| Cy Twombly Room opens at National Gallery with twelve new works |
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