Twombly

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name, best known as belonging to the American painter and sculptor Cy Twombly, whose scribbled abstract works are widely admired
2. A surname borne by people such as Cy Twombly, the American artist celebrated for loose, graffiti-like abstract paintings
3. The name of an American family, most famous through the abstract painter Cy Twombly and his gestural, handwriting-inspired canvases

Etymology: Cy Twombly (1928–2011) was an American painter whose name became a term for his style. He was born Edwin Parker Twombly Jr. in Lexington, Virginia, and the surname is English in origin, a family name tied to a place or a personal trait rather than to any word for art. Twombly's scribbled, graffiti-like canvases, with their loops and erased-looking marks, were so distinctive that critics and curators began using his name as a shorthand for that manner of work. Because "Twombly" is a proper name, it has no dictionary etymology of its own beyond the surname's roots, and the sense of "a Twombly-like work" is a later extension of the painter's fame. The painter himself shortened his name to Cy early in his career, so the familiar form most people encounter is a nickname rather than the family name.