Cy Twombly was born in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia. In the mid 1950s, following travels in Europe and Africa, he emerged as a prominent figure among a group of artists working in New York that included Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Rejecting traditional notions of composition, much in the manner of Jackson Pollock, Twombly's work is immediately recognised by his abstract scrawls and scribbles - usually on a black or white background. His work is not without it's critics and it has been dismissed as "silly" - but Twombly has a wide global audience and has been exhibited in a number of major galleries. A travelling European retrospective opened at the Tate Modern, London in June 2008.

Above: Cy Twombly, Leda and the Swan, 1963