Orion III (New York City), 1968
Information about the artwork
- Translated titleOrion III (New York)
- MaterialEmulsion paint, crayon, and pencil on canvas
- Dimensions172.5 x 216 cm
- Year of acquisition1974
- Inventory numberUAB 447
- On viewOn view
- CopyrightCy Twombly Foundation
Photo: Haydar Koyupinar, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Museum Brandhorst, Munich
More about the artwork
Twombly studied astronomy in depth and produced several works with cosmic themes in the late 1960s. Among these was a series of untitled paintings showing spiral loops and infinity signs against a black background. The lines look like abstract trajectories of an object orbiting in space. Some of the paintings are inspired by illustrations from scientific journals. Orion III (New York City) refers to a NASA endeavor: “Project Orion” was the name of the nuclear pulse propulsion study designed to shoot a rocket into space with the help of several explosions. The circles in the picture mark the thrust moments created by the nuclear explosions. Twombly’s reference to antiquity—the constellation Orion is named after a hunter in Greek mythology—appears in this context as an allusion to the US-Soviet arms race. The spaceship in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was released around at the same time, also bears the name Orion.
