CY TWOMBLY (born Edwin Parker Twombly, Jr.), whose childlike scribbles made him one of the era’s most important artists, died in July, 2011 of cancer in ROME at the age of 83.
 
Twombly's work wasn't quite Abstract Expressionism, toyed with Minimalism, and foresaw Conceptualism, He was a contemporary and friends with artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. His work was controversial and subversive but elementally human. Each line he made, he said, was “the actual experience” of making the line, adding: “It does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization.” He said: “It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture.”
 
Twombly's work often had to be defended because it looked like "a child could do it." His drawings were more "marks on paper" than actual drawings as we typically think of them. Helping people understand the subversive and challenging conceptual motivations behind his work is an important path to helping them understand Contemporary Art today.
 
Cy Twombly's work is important as art because it challenged and subverted commonly held ideas about what art is and helped up-end traditional conceptions of drawing as both pure representation and skilled craftsmanship.