The British have a name for people like David Hockney: a national treasure. An informal title reserved for people who achieve so much success that their name is synonymous with national identity. When Hockney died last week, both the Prime Minister and the King issued statements praising his achievements and contributions to the arts. Hockney’s most famous paintings depict California swimming pools; later works show the changing light of Normandy during the year. Yet he was born in Yorkshire, died in London and never lost his Northern accent. There is one thing he hasn’t lost in his 88 years on earth: his passion for observation and using whatever tool he felt was right to capture what he saw.
Hockney was born in Bradford, an industrial city in the north of England, into a working-class family. His father raised prams, and when Hockney began painting street scenes in his native Bradford, he loaded his paints and equipment into one of his father’s cars. It must have been a funny idea, but Hockney was not one to be shy or boring when it came to anything, not least the tools of his trade. He embraces technology wherever it opens up new creative opportunities, his curiosity keeps pace with every new development. His works include paintings, prints, Polaroids and iPad drawings. His methods of producing the world were not merely means to an end but an inspiration in themselves.
As a student at the Royal College of Art, he was rebellious; he almost failed when he refused to fulfill the essay requirement for his degree, saying that the work should be allowed to speak for itself. Hockney never wanted anyone to speak for him, and he didn’t want to test himself in any way. He came out as gay while studying, at a time when it was illegal to be gay in Britain. His signature look is the Californian blues
Another important event took place in 1961: Hockney visited America for the first time. Over the next few years, he would create works that came to symbolize the ease, fun, modernity and loneliness of Californian life. Big Bang since 1967 it has entered the visual catalog and symbolizes the unity of the Golden State—light and light.
What other colors does the name Hockney evoke? iPad vegetables of the British countryside. Salts Mill oranges in Saltaire, a reproduction of which still hangs in my parents’ home. The pink of the roses is like her mother’s skin My parentsa painting that shows, as much as any, Hockney’s ability to capture his feelings about someone through painting. Later in life, Hockney focused more on landscapes, especially those of England and France. In 2008, he dedicated his greatest work, Big Trees Near Waterat the Tate in London. He had painted a work the previous year in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and the almost green in the fields behind is unmistakably Hockney.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hockney moved to France. “I’ll show the French how to paint Normandy,” he joked, never one to resist provocation. The result was A year in Normandya 90-foot digital frieze created on his iPad. It depicts the seasons throughout the year, and Hockney clearly relished the opportunity to use a range of colors to capture the changing nature. When I saw the work a few months ago at London’s Serpentine Gallery, I went in expecting a gimmick. I ended up going around this space five times. I felt that I was not seeing Normandy or even time changing, but rather a man’s passion for capturing the world around him.
Hockney was never interested only in what he saw, but in how seeing works. He has spent much of his career questioning whether common perception or images really reflect how people see the world. His photographic “collaborators”, combining multiple images to create one larger image, disrupted our understanding of what a photographic image was and how photography expresses reality. The same interest informed Hockney-Falco’s controversial theory, in which he argued (with the American physicist Charles Falco) that Renaissance artists relied on optical devices, namely the camera obscura, to achieve their reality. For Hockney, technology was not the enemy of art; it was another tool for understanding the way we see the world.
David Hockney loved many things. He loved color. He liked to smoke. She loved fashion. He loved the job. He had a rule: “Paint the things you like.” Apparently he followed his advice. In a 2020 letter to Ruth Mackenzie that has been widely circulated since her death, she wrote simply: “I love life.” It might be the most fitting epitaph imaginable for an artist who painted what he loved.
More for artists
