The Dallas Museum of Art is adding three new works from noted artists as the institution continues to build on its contemporary collection.
The museum announced Wednesday that the works are Marlene Dumas' "For Whom the Bell Tolls," a painting based on a 1943 photograph of Ingrid Bergman; Jim Hodges' "and still this," a gold-leaf painting that spans an open circle of 10 canvases; and Yayoi Kusama's "Accumulation," a chair covered with bulbous forms made of sewn stuffed fabric.
Dumas is known for continuing the tradition of figure-painting, said Charles Wylie, curator of contemporary art at the museum. An exhibit of more than 100 works by Dumas is currently on display at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The 2008 painting acquired by the DMA featuring a close-up of Bergman is roughly 3-by-2½ feet. "It's just a marvelous painting of the human face and the number of emotions that run through it," Wylie told The Associated Press.
The Hodges work from 2005 to 2008 encircles viewers. The gold leaf applied to the canvases creates what appears to be silhouettes of trees and water. "It's a marvelous kind of otherworldly experience to be inside it," Wylie said.
The work by Japanese artist Kusama is from 1962 to 1964.
The works were acquired jointly by the museum and The Rachofsky Collection with the DMA/amfAR Benefit Fund. The fund is supported by an annual fundraising event and has allowed the museum to acquire around 70 works of contemporary art.
Those works are in addition to the bequeath by three Dallas families in 2005 of their private collections of modern and contemporary art to the museum.
The families -- Marguerite and the late Robert Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and Deedie and Rusty Rose -- have promised their private and future acquisitions to the DMA. Those gifts now include more than 1,200 works.
The Dallas Museum of Art: www.dallasmuseumofart.org
