David Hockney, British born 1937

A selection of the artist’s paintings, drawings and photographic creations were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/2018, by way of the Tate, London and the Pompidou, Paris.

 

 

 

The artist was born in the Yorkshire city of Bradford to a family whom he described as ‘radical working class’. 

 

His mother was a devout Methodist.  His father, an accountant, was a conscientious objector during WW2, a man of pronounced opinions, an activist, and a sharp dresser.

 

The artist was born into both non-conformism and Non-Conformism:  the latter being a group of people determined, against overwhelming odds and for generations, to the ends of their religious autonomy and political emancipation.  

 

 

David Hockney and his parents.  Image taken from the web. Date TBD but probably before 1964.

 

 

David Hockney is a master portraitist and he has painted hundreds of portraits.

 

His portraits are not only about a person’s physical features but also about the relationship of that person with their environment and with other people. Consequently, Hockney does not usually take commissions.

 

The artist’s response to questions about why he never offered to paint Queen Elizabeth II and is not offering to paint King Charles III speaks to his goals for his portraiture and to the thoroughness of his methods:  he said that he only paints the people he knows and he cannot work out how to paint ‘the majesty’. 

 

 

The hues of Hockney’s English landscapes often have the headiness of a dream.

This may reflect the fact that he made them from memory when he began to make them.  California colour may also have seeped into these English scenes. Later, in 2003 and thereafter, he painted the Yorkshire land en plein air in Yorkshire. 

 

This exhibition included some of Hockney’s early experimental paintings  in the 1960s. Many of these are remarkable for their subject matter: homosexuality.  Hockney came out as gay when he was 23 and at college, seven years before homosexuality was decriminalized in Great Britain. 

That he painted homosexuality at a time when he could have been prosecuted says all of his non-conformity and courage.

 

The Met included the artist’s photographic experiments. 

Among these were some creations with multipoint perspective: an image created  by joining (‘joiners’ Hockney called them) many images whose perspectives vary but whose vanishing points are merged  in the final image itself.  Also images which are joined such that you see movement across the final conjoined image.

 

Also included were the IPAD art which Hockney had begun not long before the exhibition (2017). Glorious as are their colours, these are less complicated and less interesting than the artist’s paintings.

 

Equal to my appreciation of his work is my pleasure that this talented son of a ‘radical working class’ English family has been so successful. 

Equal to because class systems are widespread:  they starve, waste and destroy large amounts of human potential.

And the British class system, which lets through a dribble of very talented Davids (Bailey, Bowie, Hockney) in each generation, is an efficient and long-lived vampirical exemplar.

 

Hockney visited New York and California in the early 1960s and moved to Los Angeles permanently in 1964.  The artist intermittently spent 30 years in California, returning often to Yorkshire.  Also to Paris and London.

 

It is  wonderful to see how the golden thread of our Western artistic tradition drew a young man out into bright sunlight – California was a paradise to Hockney – to make of his life what he would. 

 

Because, even if art never saved anyone’s physical life, all art, all expressions of the human spirit, save the sanity of so many of us in these wild, wicked times. 

 

 

 

 

Self-portrait, 30th September, 1983, charcoal on paper. 

David Hockney, British born 1937. National Portrait Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

David Hockney moved for graduate work to the Royal College of Art in London.  He graduated in 1962 already well-known and well represented in the art market.

 

The artist has lived as though he were always free.

As though he was always free because he was and is.

He has painted what, who, and how he wanted to. 

 

 

 

Tyger, oil on masonite, 1960. 

David Hockney, British born 1937. Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum in 2017/18

The museum noted that Jackson Pollock’s work was the base inspiration of this painting’s style.  ‘Tyger’ is a reference to the William Blake poem.

 

 

 

 

Love, oil on masonite, 1960. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

Shame,  oil on masonite

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2017/18

 

 

This freedom the artist has exercised through a life of the usual intermittent pain and aggravation of any life;  and the extended period of grief from the deaths of a large number of his friends, acquaintances and associates, overwhelmingly young men, from diseases associated with AIDS.

 

 

 

Cleaning Teeth, Early Evening, 10 pm, W11, 1962, and detail, oil on canvas.

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Astrup Fearnley Collection, Oslo, Norway loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18.

Homosexuality was legalized in Great Britain in 1967,  five years after this explicit portrait of homosexual love.

 

 

 

The Third Love Painting, and detail, 1960, oil on masonite. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Tate Gallery loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

The Cha Cha That Was Danced in the Early Hours of 24th March, 1961, and detail, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18.

An ode to the ‘beautiful’ Peter Crutch who was dancing that night.

 

 

 

 

 

Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style, 1961, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Tate Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

The First Marriage (A Marriage of Styles I), and detail, 1962, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Tate Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18.

On a trip to Berlin with a friend, notes the museum, the artist, separated from his friend, found him standing next to a pharaonic figure at the Pergamum Musuem.  The idea of this painting of two figures represented in different styles came from this.

 

 

 

 

 

Man in a Museum (Or You’re in the Wrong Movie), 1962, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  British Council Collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18.

The juxtaposition of two styles.

 

 

 

 

Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, 1963, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18 (with shadow interference from within the gallery).

An imagining of a domestic scene before the artist had yet reached Los Angeles.

 

 

 

 

Play on Play, 1963, oil on Plexiglass on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

 

The museum proposed that this is a tapestry-like painting, based on 14th century frescoes the artist had seen.  Here his art dealer, Jon Kasmin, is pinned between an illusionistic space of a theatrical backdrop and a pane of plexiglass which covers the center-right of this painting.

 

 

 

 

The Hypnotist, 1963, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

 

This painting, the museum noted, is among the first in which the artist, began to experiment with the emotional and visual space between people in the same canvas.

 

 

 

The artist left England permanently for California in 1964.  Its sun has drenched his work since.

Since 1964, Hockney has moved back to England several times, to Paris in the mid-70s and back to California more than once.  At the time of this exhibition, Hockney was living in California.  

 

 

 

 

Arizona, 1964, acrylic on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

Rocky Mountains and Tired Indians, 1965, acrylic on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Loaned by the Scottish National Gallery of Art, Edinburgh to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait Surrounded by Artistic Devices, 1965, acrylic on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2017/2018

 

The museum noted that this is a portrait of the artist’s father surrounded by references to the work of Kenneth Noland, Cezanne, perhaps Picasso and perhaps Francis Bacon.

 

 

 

 

 

California Art Collector, 1964. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

The museum noted that this is the artist’s take on the houses of art collectors whom he met after his arrival in Los Angeles in 1964.

 

 

 

Water

How to portray water captivated the artist.  Also light striking glass or a building or anything.  Also the space around us.

 

 

 

Man in Shower in Beverly Hills, 1964, acrylic on canvas, 1964. 

David Hockney, British born 1937. Tate Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

A commemoration of the American love of showers.

 

 

 

 

A Lawn Being Sprinkled, acrylic on canvas, 1967. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Savings and Loan Building, acrylic on canvas, 1967. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC loan to the Metropolitan Museum in 2017/18

 

One of the earliest of the artist’s California paintings, this approaches minimalism.

 

 

 

 

A Bigger Splash, acrylic on canvas, 1961. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Tate Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

Based on an image in a book, this is one of three paintings in which the artist is presenting a particular, affluent California lifestyle in which the only lively element is the water.

 

 

 

 

Pool and Steps, Le Nid du Duc, 1971, acrylic on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18. 

 

The house and pool of the director Tony Richardson (1928-1991, British).  The shoes are those of Peter Schlesinger.

 

 

 

 

 

Rubber Ring Floating in a Swimming Pool, 1971, acrylic on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Mount Fuji and Flowers, 1972, acrylic on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Painted in London after a visit to Mount Fuji in 1971.

 

 

 

 

Portraits between 1967 and 1981

In all such work, the artist attempted a casual and a formal portrayal in which there is some insight into the relationship of the subjects to each other.

 

His subjects are placed, usually, in an environment of pastel colours so that nothing directs attention away from them.  Likewise there is a minimum of objects around these figures for the same reason.

The light is as unsullied as in his landscape paintings.

He pays minute attention to the disposition of hands, feet; the focus of eyes; to the slant, relaxation, or rigidity of bodies; to clothes.

 

 

 

Seated Woman Being Served Tea By Standing Companion, 1963, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

 

The Room, Tarzana, 1967, acrylic on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18.

Peter Schlesinger, a student at UCLA,  was the artist’s lover at the time. They met in 1966.

 

 

 

 

Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott, 1968-1969. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

Henry Geldzahler (1935-1994) worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as curator for American Art and then the first curator for 20th Century Art.  He originated the Met’s institutional efforts in the area of modern art. Christopher Scott, artist and model, was his partner at the time. 

The two are not looking at each other.  Christopher Scott’s trench coat is too big for him.  His shoes are neither as buffed nor as elegant as Henry Geldzahler’s.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at Pictures on a Screen, 1977, oil on canvas. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/2018.

 

 

 

 

David Hockney and Henry Geldzahler, 1976, silver gelatin print. 

Robert Mapplethorpe, 1946-1989.  On view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim, NY in 2019

 

 

 

 

 

My Parents, 1977, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Tate Gallery, London on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

The artist began this painting and then stopped and began it again when his father asked how, after so many sittings, it could be stopped.

A painting of the artist’s parents’ household: sparse, pristine, things in their appointed place.

 

A certain tension between his parents apparent in their feet and shoes.  Her right foot is curled slightly inwards and touches her left shoe as if for assurance.  The soles of his feet, in shoes polished like mirrors, are slightly off the ground, carefully, almost self-consciously but in no way deferential to anyone. 

Her hair is QE2.   Her whole manner that of a queen in her own house.  His body is alert to the information that he is seeking and to any disturbance in his castle.

The artist was in France when he completed this painting. The museum proposed that the book about the painter Chardin is meant to make a direct link of the artist’s art to his own people.

A poignant painting and widely known in England. 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1971, acrylic on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Tate Gallery, London loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18.

 

Ossie Clark (British, 1942-1996) and Celia Birtwhistle (British born 1941) socially prominent designers, friends of the artists whom he painted – with difficulty especially Ossie’s head – on the occasion of their marriage.

 

 

 

 

 

Celia in a Black Dress with White Flowers, 1972, crayon on paper. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2017/18.

 

 

 

 

 

Ossie Wearing a Fairisle Sweater, 1970, crayon on paper. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Andy, Paris, 1974, graphite on paper. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman), 1968, acrylic on canvas, and detail. 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  The Art Institute of Chicago loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18.

 

The museum noted that the artist disliked commissions but offered to paint the two together because he was interested in their relationship to each other. Mrs. Weisman chose never to hang this painting.

In light of this, one can speculate not only about Mr. Weisman’s ramrod posture and fabricated phallic shadow,  but also the paint dripping out of his clenched fist.

 

 

 

 

 

Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1968, acrylic on canvas  

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18.

 

Christopher Isherwood, American born England, 1904-1986, novelist.  Don Bachardy, American, portrait artist, born 1934.

The museum noted that the artist considered that the complex relationship between the two men was an intellectually and emotionally successful one and he was fascinated by it.  They were together 30 years.

Isherwood is looking towards Bachardy who is looking at us.  

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), acrylic on canvas, and detail, 1972.

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18 (sold in late 2018 to a second private collector).

 

Peter Schlesinger, not long before his relationship with the artist ended, is posed somewhere between  expectation and prayer above a body in a pool.

 

 

 

Experiments with painting techniques

 

 

 

Contre-Jour in the French Style (Against the Day dans le style francais), 1974, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest  loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2017/18.

 

The museum noted that the artist moved to Paris in 1973 and made a study of contre-jour using pointillism.

 

 

 

 

Kerby (After Hogarth), 1975, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  MOMA, NY loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

The museum noted that the artist, following William Hogarth (1697-1764), made an experimental painting of the effects of paying no attention to perspective.

 

 

 

Photographic Collages

 

The artist began experimenting with photographic collages in 1982: photographic images juxtaposed, arranged or overlain in various ways to continue his investigation of perspective and composition and also to represent motion. 

 

 

Celia.  Los Angeles. April 10th, 1982, composite Polaroid

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Collection of the artist loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Gregory Swimming.  Los Angeles.  March 31, 1982

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Collection of the artist loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Pearblossom Highway,  11th-18th April, 1986 #1, 1986, chromogenic print created of more than 700 photographs

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Loaned by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/2018

An American highway from both a driver’s and a passenger’s perspective.

 

 

 

Interiors and Landscapes (to 2017)

 

The artist’s paintings since the early 1980’s have become brighter and more insistent. 

These are landscapes both of California and of Yorkshire where  he visited frequently and where he moved in 2002.  In 2013, he moved back to Los Angeles.

 

 

Nichols Canyon, 1980, acrylic on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 In 1978, Hockney bought a house at the top of Hollywood Hills.  This is the view as seen from that house. This painting, moving away from swimming pools and minimalist architecture, is the first of his panoramic views of the Californian land.

 

 

 

 

 

Hollywood Hills House, 1981-82, oil, charcoal and collage on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Walker Art Center, Minneapolis loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18.

The museum noted that this is a memory of the first house in which the artist lived in Hollywood Hills and he painted it on a visit to a rainy England.

 

 

 

 

 

Large Interior, Los Angeles, 1988, oil, ink on cut-and-pasted paper on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

 

 

Outpost Drive, Hollywood, 1980, acrylic on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, 1990, oil on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

The  museum noted that this is a translation into paint of a journey with friends by road through the Santa Monica Mountains with Richard Wagner playing in the car.

 

 

 

 

 

Breakfast at Malibu, Sunday, 1989, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

A view from a house on the Malibu beach which the artist bought in the late 1980s.

 

 

 

The Road Across the Wolds, 1997, oil on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Going out Garrowby Hill, 2000, oil on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

The Road to Thwing, 2006, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2018

 

 

 

 

A Closer Winter Tunnel, February/March 2006, oil on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Elderflower Blossom, Kilham, July 2006

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private collection loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

 

 

 

Hawthorn Blossom near Ruddston, oil on canvas, 2008

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado River, 1998, oil on canvas  

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Pots in the Garden, 2000, acrylic on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

Garden with Blue Terrace, acrylic on canvas, 2015

David Hockney, British born 1937. Private loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017/18

 

 

 

David Hockney photographed at his Hollywood Hills home with a book open to the painting immediately above

 Photo courtesy of Matthias Vriens-McGrath in an article in Architectural Digest in September 2018

 

 

 

 

 

Interior with Blue Terrace and Garden, 2017, acrylic on canvas 

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Collection of the artist on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

 

 

A Bigger Interior with Blue Terrace, 2017, acrylic on canvas

David Hockney, British born 1937.  Collection of the artist on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 2017/18

 

 

 

IPAD Art

At the time of this exhibition, the artist had recently taken to using the IPAD to create images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joni Mitchell (singer, song-writer, born 1943 Canada) and David Hockney at L.A Louver Gallery in Venice, California on a day in  February 2019.  Photo taken by the the gallery’s owner, Jacob Sousa.

  This is the artist’s long-time gallery and his most recent work in painting, prints and photography were  on display.