Dallas, TX—December 18, 2024—The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has received a gift of The Splendid Table (2019-2020), the first work by celebrated contemporary painter Cecily Brown to enter the Museum’s collection. A monumental triptych composed of three oil-on-linen panels, The Splendid Table was donated jointly by The Rachofsky Collection and The Hartland & Mackie Family / Labora Collection. The striking work, inspired by Flemish still life painting traditions, exemplifies Brown’s deft ability to examine and subvert art historical themes and tropes through her radical, gestural approach to painting. The Splendid Table is currently on view at the DMA as the centerpiece of Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations, the artist’s largest retrospective to date.
“Through our contemporary collection, the DMA aims to capture the artistic currents of our time, and Cecily Brown is someone who has been shaping the course of art history in real time since she appeared on the scene in the 1990s. The Museum is grateful to make its first acquisition of Brown’s work through the generosity of the Rachofskys and Thomas Hartland-Mackie,” said Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the Museum’s Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. “Brown’s engagement with the art historical canon creates opportunities to pair her work with both historic and contemporary pieces, opening new pathways for dialogue with works in the collection.”
Cecily Brown (b. 1969, London, UK; lives and works in New York, NY) is known for her defiant reinvention of contemporary painting over the last three decades. Through her layered, dynamic brushwork, use of evocative color, and wide-ranging contemporary and traditional references, Brown creates complex and engaging works that offer new interpretations of the art historical canon through a contemporary lens. Through this reimagining, Brown’s practice complicates the gendered stereotypes prevalent in historical painting and positions women as fully realized authors and subjects, enshrining their place within the history of art.
Inspired by the still lifes of Flemish painter Frans Snyders, The Splendid Table presents Brown’s expressive and colorful interpretation of the bounty of the bloody hunt. Deer and goose carcasses hang throughout, and splayed across the table in the central panel of the triptych is a bunny—a subject of fascination for the artist that was prevalent in her early work and has made a reappearance in Brown’s more recent investigations of the still life and royal hunt genres. The work was formally accessioned by the Board of Trustees following its joint donation by the Rachofsky Collection, overseen by Dallas-based collectors and longstanding DMA supporters Howard and Cindy Rachofsky, and of The Hartland & Mackie Family / Labora Collection, under the auspices of Thomas Hartland-Mackie, President and CEO of the Dallas-based Labora Group.
“We are proud to continue to support the Dallas Museum of Art, which is a fixture in the local, national and international contemporary art communities,” said Howard Rachofsky. “We are especially excited to gift this work to the Museum at a peak moment in Cecily’s career, as she receives much-deserved attention at museums and galleries around the world, including here in Dallas, where the DMA is presenting her largest retrospective to date.”
“The Splendid Table is a masterpiece of Cecily’s oeuvre. The Rachofskys and I are delighted to gift this work to the Museum so that it can continue to be explored and enjoyed by the public, both in the exhibition and for many years to come,” added Thomas Hartland-Mackie.
The Splendid Table will remain on view through February 9, 2024, in Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations, which then travels to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The exhibition brings together nearly 30 large-scale paintings and drawings from across 30 years of the artist’s practice, including two new large-scale works on paper that are being shared with the public for the first time.