For the last twenty years of his life, Cy Twombly returned often to Lexington, his hometown in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. During extended visits, he created significant works in modest rented studios. Photographer Rob McDonald, one of his acquaintances there, made photographs inside Twombly's final storefront studio in Lexington in 2007-08, as well as at the site of Black Mountain College where Twombly created some of his earliest important work. What emerges is an intimate study of ordinary spaces that quietly sheltered the genius of one of the world's great artists.
Text: Thierry Greub.