Cy Twombly’s Fifty Days at Iliam: Carlos Basualdo with David R. Baum

Looking back on the life and legacy of the painter known for his visual interpretation of the Iliad. 

In 1977 when he began work on what would become the series Fifty Days at Iliam, Cy Twombly had already established a signature style of painting that synthesized words and images. But his depiction of Alexander Pope’s eighteenth-century translation of Homer’s Iliad—rendered in his unique gestural handwriting and diagrams—would become a defining work, and turning point in his career. The series of ten paintings, from Shield of Achilles to Heroes of the Ilians, hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The museum’s senior curator, and editor of the recently published Cy Twombly: Fifty Days at Iliam, Carlos Basualdo speaks with David R. Baum, the Secretary and Outside General Counsel of the Cy Twombly Foundation, about the lasting significance of the artist and his work.

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