David Hockney Contemporary Artist of the 20th century
David Hockney is one of the most popular British artists of the 20th century, instantly recognisable with his trademark circular glasses and exuberant personality, Hockney is also one of the most versatile artists, being successful as a painter, photographer, printmaker, stage designer and a draughtsman. His work, derived from Popular Art and culture coupled with his love of photography, is often characterised by a pre-occupation with light and economy of technique that results in a frank, honest and humorous realism in his work. Although David Hockney rejects the labelling of his works as “Pop Art”, his paintings often reference this movement, and one of his favourite subjects is the Californian swimming pool, displaying his love of Los Angeles. This “love affair” has resulted in the memorable painting “A Bigger Splash” (1967). David Hockney is an artist that has always enjoyed much success and praise in his career, and although he is often regarded as a playboy of the modern art world with lascivious relationships, he has always maintained a sense of stability throughout his life by his tireless devotion to his work.
David Hockney was born on 9th July 1937 in Saltaire, Bradford in England to a working class family. He attended local art schools and then went on to a prize-winning career while at the Royal College of Art in London, graduating in 1962. While at the College, Hockney met R B Kitaj, Peter Philips and Patrick Caulfield and became one of the founding members of the British Pop Art movement. He was already one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary artists in Britain by his mid twenties. He had his first one-man show at the age of 26 and was awarded the first prize in the John Moores Exhibition in 1967.
Hockney settled in Los Angeles in 1978, falling in love with it after his visit in 1963 when developing a sun-drenched palette and starting a series of paintings based on his fantasies of homoerotic life in California. It is these paintings of Californian swimming pools that have associated him with the Pop Art movement emerging in the UK and US in the 1960s. He also painted many portraits of his friends within the fashion and art world, many of whom became icons of the 1960s culture. Hockney then turned his attention to stage design in the 1970s, designing elaborate stage sets for theatre and opera productions in New York, London, Paris and Los Angeles such as: Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in 1975; Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; and Mozart’s Die Zauberflote in 1978.
Hockney then began to produce photo collages in the early 1980s called “joiners”. He first produced them from Polaroid prints and then to 35mm commercially processed colour prints, with subjects ranging from portraiture to still life and from a style of representation to abstraction. These photo collages resembled Cubist compositions made from the photos, he also made portraits that were made of many photographic details of the sitter.
David Hockney has also written books on art which include:
- Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Techniques of the Old Masters (2001), where he advances the theory that old art masters were utilising optical devices to help them in there work as early as 1420.
- David Hockney on David Hockney (1976) and
- That’s the Way I See It (1993)
Hockney’s work has always been distinctive and versatile, whether through his realistic and serious portraits or his exotic landscapes. He has established a clean and flat style of simple compositions in clear bright colours that emulate his role model, Picasso, in his demonstration of original thinking and creative freedom.
