In this volume, an extended essay by Kirk Varnedoe, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, examines the artist's background and early education in Lexington, Virginia, and charts his study at the Boston Museum School, the Art Students League of New York, and the renowned, progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

Twombly's early contacts with both the modern European tradition and New York School painting are examined, and the emergence of his own distinct style in the mid-1950s is presented with a new clarity.

More than fifty of the artist's most important paintings from all phases of his career are reproduced in color, including recent works never seen outside the studio and several important earlier works not previously published. A dozen sculptures, stretching from the artist's early assemblages of the 1940s through work of recent years, are also reproduced, as well as more than forty works on paper.