David Hockney: Drawing from Life

David Hockney (born 1937) is one of the most celebrated and well-known British artists. He came to fame as one of the leading artists involved in the Pop art Pop art A movement that emerged in America and Britain in the 1950s that challenged artistic traditions by using imagery from popular consumer culture to create new artworks.  movement in the 1960s.

Hockney is particularly known as a painter and as one of the master drafters of our times. He widely champions drawing, which has underpinned his work throughout his life. His drawing is inspired by both the Old Masters Old Master A skilled and distinguished artist, active between the 1200s and 1600s in Europe. , such as Rembrandt, and ‘modern Masters’ like Picasso.

He is known for experimenting in a range of media and techniques. These include printmaking, photography and stage design, as well as painting and drawing. He has also been creating artworks using iPads since they first came out in 2010, working with developers to create custom-made apps.

He is well-known for creating portraits of people he loves, making portraits of the same people again and again. These portraits include his parents and a close group of friends, showing their changing appearance and relationship with him.

Over the past six decades, Hockney’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns, from the early pen and ink Ink Coloured liquid used for writing, drawing and printing. , and coloured pencil drawings to his more recent experiments with watercolour Watercolour Paints that you mix with water, not oil, and use for painting pictures. and digital technology.

Hockney’s portraits provide insights into his intense observations of the people he has met over many years. These begin with his early self-portraits Self-portrait A painting, photograph or other form of art work where the artist represents themselves. and studies of his parents created while he was still a student.

Hockney went to the Royal College of Art in 1959, where drawing was still compulsory. He threw himself into the life classes and his natural aptitude was noted by tutors and fellow students. He has continued his practice of drawing throughout his life, using a wide range of techniques and materials.

Hockney usually works with a small circle of sitters and has captured changing appearances and relationships over the years. These include people close to him, whose portraits he has made numerous times over several decades such as his mother, Laura Hockney; his friend, textile designer Celia Birtwell; the curator, Gregory Evans; and master printer, Maurice Payne.

Throughout his career Hockney has enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the camera. He began using photography in 1967 when he bought his first 35mm camera and used it as an aide-mémoire for his painting. In the 1970s, he began assembling individual photographs into small compositions.

While working on photo collages in the early 80s, Hockney was also painting and drawing. He created a group of playfully neo-Cubist portraits, which explore multiple viewpoints and distortion as a direct consequence of his renewed enthusiasm for the work of Picasso.

Artists often find that they have affinities with other artists – they may have similar artistic concerns or be attracted to the same shapes, colours or subject matter. Hockney is inspired by Old Masters Old Master A skilled and distinguished artist, active between the 1200s and 1600s in Europe. such as Rembrandt and Ingres, as well as ‘modern masters’ including Matisse, Picasso and Van Gogh. He visited Picasso’s Tate exhibition in 1960, and after Picasso died in 1973, he produced this etching called The Student – Homage to Picasso, together with other works relating to Picasso.

Hockney’s decision to turn to etching was a practical one. Students at the Royal College of Art, where he was studying, had to buy their own materials. He was an enthusiastic painter but the materials were expensive. He had quickly run out of money, and so took advantage of the college’s free etching and printmaking materials.

In 1983, when David Hockney was in his mid-forties, he turned to an intense period of self-examination. This was partly in response to approaching middle age, increasing isolation due to his deafness, and the untimely deaths of many friends, some to AIDS-related illnesses.

Every day for six weeks he set himself the challenge of drawing an honest self-portrait Self-portrait A painting, photograph or other form of art work where the artist represents themselves. , just as he found himself on that particular day, using charcoal Charcoal A black material made by burning wood slowly in an oven with little air. . These drawings, including the two shown here, reveal a vulnerable and private side to Hockney that is very different to the bleached hair and owl glasses image of his youth.

One of the most interesting areas in portraiture is self-representation. Artists can show themselves in the context that they choose, whether this is their home, their studio or another location. Props and other figures can be added to this environment. 

There is also the choice of media. What is exciting about Hockney is the way he likes to use different media. He is not afraid of pushing the boundaries of his art and discovering new processes that reflect his evolving moods, interests and skills.

David Hockney is well-known for creating portraits of people he loves. He has created portraits of the same people again and again, particularly his parents and a close group of friends, using different materials and techniques, and showing their changing appearance and relationship with him.

Hockney understands that portraiture is the result of a collaboration between artist and sitter Sitter The person in a portrait. ; often the best portraits come about with sitters known to the artist. Hockney’s relationships with those most involved with his art are documented in his portraits. These include his master printer Maurice Payne and curator Gregory Evans. They have been both the material for his work as an artist and have been crucial in the development of his career.

Hockney grew up in an unconventional working-class family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His parents were an important early influence and they supported him in his decision to become an artist. Hockney remained close to them throughout their lives, and they were recurring subjects in his work.

His father, Kenneth Hockney, worked as a clerk, but was an amateur artist and anti-smoking campaigner, who was well-known for his strong political views. His mother, Laura Hockney, often sat for David. She was a strict vegetarian, teetotaller and committed Methodist who lived for 98 years.

David Hockney’s early Bradford drawings capture the world around him. He has always used his sketchbooks as a visual diary, and the pages are filled with scenes of his family.

My Parents and Myself represents some of the themes explored by Hockney – working from life, intimate relationships and the influence of other artists. While selecting the works for Drawing from Life in Hockney’s Los Angeles studio, the artist rediscovered the painting, believing that after abandoning it, the work had been destroyed. The masking tape was originally used to hang a piece of paper over the central panel as Hockney re-worked the surrounding area.

Hockney met Gregory Evans in London through the Los Angeles art dealer, Nick Wilder. They began an intimate relationship in Paris, where they both lived, in 1974. Gregory was Hockney’s lover, assistant, studio manager and curator, and a consistent model for fifty years. Hockney’s portraits of him reflect the closeness of their relationship.

Textile designer, Celia Birtwell, has been David Hockney’s close friend since the 1960s. They found they had much in common with their northern roots and shared sense of humour, and together they were at the artistic heart of London. Hockney has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face, and she remains to this day, one of his favourite models.

She is often referred to as Hockney’s ‘muse Muse A person that gives an artist ideas and the desire to create things. ’, but their relationship is much more than that. They have always admired each other’s work and her sittings for him have been collaborations, as well as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company.

In his portraits of Celia, Hockney always paid close attention to her distinctive and romantic fabric designs and some of Celia’s own work is inspired by Hockney. In Celia, Carennac, August 1971 Celia is portrayed wearing a brightly coloured vintage dressing gown. The boldness of the textile print in this portrait contrasts with her face, clothes and her hands.

Hockney continued to make portraits of Celia Birtwell over the next fifty years, most recently in November 2019 when she visited the artist at his home in Normandy, France.

In the spring of 2019 David Hockney moved to Normandy, an area of northern France which has inspired many painters, most notably the Impressionist Impressionism A style in painting developed in France in the late 1800s that uses colour to show the effects of light, and to suggest atmosphere rather than showing exact details. , Claude Monet.

In 2021, as Hockney emerged from the quarantine imposed on him by Covid, he began to invite people into his studio again. After a year spent recording the landscape around his home using an iPad, Hockney returned to painting portraits.

These paintings, all made from life, form a series created between 2021 and 2022. Starting out with portraits of his partner, JP, a subject whose face he knows well, the artist went on to make self-portraits Self-portrait A painting, photograph or other form of art work where the artist represents themselves. and to portray friends and visitors to his home. He painted familiar and unfamiliar faces from Celia Birtwell’s family to his studio assistant, his chiropodist and his gardener.

The sitters chose how they dressed and the way they sat for the two-to-three sittings required. He applied slow drying acrylic paint quickly and directly onto the canvas without under-drawing.