All Alone In The Museum Of Modern Art

All Alone In The Museum of Modern Art is one of Hodgkin’s most interesting and surprising works. Known for his vibrant, exuberant and colourful abstract landscapes, Hodgkin departs from colour in this print, privileging instead dark, sombre tones that, together, suggest a feeling of unrest and unease, further evoked by the title of the work.

It is in this work, and the series of prints it sits within, that Hodgkin expressed for the first time his full array of emotional complexity. While the image itself does not lend itself to easy readings, the work of the print locates the image within the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA). It is there, in the enclosed doors of the museum, surrounded by his favourite artists, Hodgkin liked to recount, that the artist remembers spending countless evenings and afternoons.

During World War II, then still a child, Hodgkin and his family fled the United Kingdom and sought refuge from the atrocities of the war in Long Island, where they lived until the end of the war. While the experience marked Hodgkin’s infancy, the familiar walls of MoMA gave the young artist solace and repair, effectively contributing to his interest in art. This print, with its disquieting hues, conveys with intensity this memory of his infancy, defined both by dispossession and solace.