MOMA acquires landmark painting

fresh YORK -- The Museum of late Art (MOMA) has acquired David Hockney's "Seated Woman Being Serv Tea by dint of Standing Companion" (1963), a landmark painting in the artist's career. The piece combined Hockney's earlier abstract sensibilities in its use of form and color, with the fearless technically brilliant figurative style, for which he later became known. A leading figure of a of recent origin generation of British artists, Hockney influenced their American counterparts in explosion style. He developed the make submissive of human relationships through a series of double portraits that scrutinized the interaction of sum of two units people, which later became the prominent theme in his work.

The image is of sum of two units nude women, one standing and serving tea to the other seated figure, and is drawn from images in Eadweard Muybridge's photographic series, "The Human Figure in Motion" (1887) Hockney placed the figures upon a stage with a brightly colored curtain as the backdrop and a vase of flowers not on to one side, which heightened the theatricality of the image.

"Through the acquisition of this famous, landmark painting, the museum is finally able to show Hockney at his breakthrough moment" says John Elderfield, chief curator of painting and statuary "It is a work rich in its allusions and daring in its conception, and we are extremely grateful to Don Bryant for making its purchase possible." The purchase was made possible by means of Donald L. Bryant, Jr., a trustee of the museum and a member of its committee upon painting and sculpture.

"We are delighted to welcome this major work through such an important artist," says Glenn D Lowry director. "It is a vital addition to our collection." MOMA's collection includes more than 200 works upon paper by Hockney.

"Seated Woman Being Serv Tea by the agency of Standing Companion" has been shown in a number of important exhibitions at the Louvre the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, the Tate Gallery, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The San Francisco Museum of recent Art, The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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