David Hockney Essay

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David Hockney
“Joiner”

David Hockney is one of the most popular British artists of the 20th century, instantly recognizable 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 characterized by a pre-occupation with light and economy of technique that results in a frank, honest and humorous realism in his work.

His paintings often reference this movement, and one of his favorite 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. 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 Moore’s 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.

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;

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