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BOSTON
PUBLIC
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 DAVID HOCKNEY

FACES
1966-1984

.
 DAVID HOCKNEY

FACES
1966-1984

Designed by David Hockney

Essay and Commentaries by Marco Livingstone

Published by
Laband Art Gallery, LoyolaMarymount University
in cooperation with Thames and Hudson
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition:

DAVID HOCKNEY: PORTRAIT DRAWINGS 1966-1984

Laband Art Gallery
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, California 90045

January 30 -March 14, 1987

Text Copyright p 1987 bjy Marco Livingstone,

and Loyola Marymount University
Illustrations Cd^wgnt © 1987 by David Hockney

Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is

sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or

otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated
without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including these words being imposed on a

subsequent purchaser.

First published in the United States in 1987

Marymount University and
by Loyola
Thames and Hudson Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue,
New York, New York 10110

First published in Great Britain in 1987

by Thames and Hudson Ltd, London

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 86-83167

Printed in the United States of America

Cover: David Hockney, 1986

Foreword

When David Hockney first agreed to have an exhibition of portrait drawings at Loyola
Marymount University, I was delighted, not only because I had always been drawn to this

aspect of his work, but because I relished the opportunity to come into closer contact with

an artist whose different styles of painting and drawing had made him something of an
enigma in contemporary art. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he could not be pigeon-

holed; moving with apparent ease and facility between naturalistic drawing (seen in many
of the portraits in this catalogue) and an intriguing mix of other styles, he had left his

critics confounded and his followers wondering what he would do next. In contrast to

many artists who became ossified in one style and medium, he refused to stay within the
formulas which brought him critical success in the past. Not only had Hockney moved
between styles, he had moved back and forth across media: painting, printmaking, stage
design, photography: what would the man do next?

As it turned out. our show happened at a time when Hockney was once again testing

and pushing at the boundaries within which many of his contemporaries were constrained.
During the time it took for this show and catalogue to become a reality, he had come
upon another medium which he was exploring with great enthusiasm photocopying. His :

ideas concerning this medium are more fully discussed by Marco Livingstone in this

catalogue and will not be discussed here. However, because of his fascination with office

copiers, the production of this book was profoundly influenced. What started out as a

rather straightforward catalogue metamorphosed into a book which is quite remarkable

both in its visual impact and in the freshness of the ideas which created it.

Considering most traditional book design to be dull and incapable of communicating his
work in any meaningful way. Hockney has instead transformed the original drawings
by enlarging them xerographically so that the line quality itself changes, as well as the
space which envelops them. He wants not only to make the image work in a different

medium — in a book rather than in a drawing on a wall — but to acknowledge the process
itself, whether it is a xerox or the printing process. He reiterates that he is not interested

in reproducing the image, but in transforming it.

Although many of the drawings reproduced in this book are actually in color, he decided

not to print with color because he felt that it would detract from the dramatic impact and
continuity of the book. Elsewhere, he says "Colour : is the most fugitive element of a

picture. It's fugitive in life and its fugitive m the physical reality of the picture. We can
remember that it was red, but we cannot remember exactly what kind of red this ; is why
I think black and white pictures work best, because, in a sense, we are more attuned to
"
lines and what they do. than to colours and what they do
 :

Hockney says that he thinks he sees things differently from other people. "I've often

thought about the way I see. For years, I've thought my eyes are funny or something. I

kept thinking how much can you really see and what is it you really take in as your eye
moves about focusing?" I think what he is trying to do is to make us see in a more pro-

found way. Henry Moore says "Artists are the eyes for other people who don't have the
time to spend looking at and finding out about nature. It's nature that you must be
taught to see." Hockney has questioned ideas of linear perspective (which many people

perceive as an accurate transcription of nature) held by artists since the Renaissance, and

has instead used a cubist delineation of space which he feels approximates our actual lived
experience as we move through time and space. Like Henry Moore, and like the cubists,

he sees his system of seeing as part of a seamless web which encompasses all of life.

Many people have been instrumental in bringing this exhibition to fruition. First and fore-

most, I would like to thank David Hockney for his interest and enthusiasm in every
facet of this book's creation, and Charlie Scheips and Richard Schmidt for their extensive
help in the formation and production of this book. Peter Goulds of L.A. Louver Gallery

conceived the idea for this exhibition and suggested it to David Hockney, and I am most
grateful to him. Karen S. Kuhlman has been a pleasure to work with in the organization
of the catalogue and show itself. Marco Livingstone's text has elucidated with clarity and

insight Hockney 's theories of portraiture and his relationships with his subjects. The
Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago and the Andre Emmerich Gallery in New York have
generously lent pictures to this show. Others whom I particularly wish to thank are
Paul Hockney, Warren Sherlock, Charles Gagan, S.J., Bob Cooney, Dick DuMont, Marc
Nochella, the members of the LMU Advisory Board, Lisa Terzi, Katie Thorpe, Lynn
Creighton, and many, many others too numerous to mention.

Ellen Ekedal

Director
Laband Art Gallery
Loyola Marymount University
A Life in Portraits
by Marco Livingstone

Depictions from life of family and friends have long supplied David Hockney with some
of his most engagingly human and intimate subject matter. One of his earliest extant

paintings, made in 1955 when he was still a teenage art student in Bradford, was a sensi-

tive tonal portrait of his father. In spite of being regarded by critics as a Pop artist on
his emergence from the Royal College of Art in 1962, even at that early date Hockney
showed little interest in transposing images from the mass media, preferring to borrow, if

necessary, from poetry, and to effect an alliance of direct observation with ideas either
imagined or taken from memories rooted in his own experience.

In spite of his devotion to life drawing. Hockney cannot be said to have properly turned
his attention to portraiture during the early 1960s. In the winter of 1959-60, during his
first year at the Royal College, he made some painstakingly accurate drawings of skeletons

that were a tour-de-force of technique, but these were studies not of people but of
objects. The figures which populated early paintings such as the The First Marriage (A
Marriage of Styles) 1962 or Domestic Scene, Notting Hill 1963, though based in part on
firsthand studies of friends, were either too generalized to be identifiable as particular

individuals or phrased so consciously as elements in elaborate stylistic games that it

would seem an exaggeration to call them portraits. It was only in 1965, with his first line

drawings in pen and ink. that Hockney began to make pictures of people that could be

regarded as portraits in a traditional sense, as images, that is to say, that provided evidence

both of the sitter's distinctive appearance and of his or her personality. His father,

Kenneth Hockney. was once again the subject of one of the first of these: by the artist's

own admission not a very penetrating drawing in its psychological insights, but one
that tentatively set the terms for the figure drawings in fluid outline which began to pour
from his pen in the following year.

All of the artist's portrait drawings were made in the presence of the sitter, for in

Hockney s view a portrait by definition has to be done from life or very soon after. This,

however, by no means excludes the possibility of incorporating elements from memory since
previous knowledge of how someone behaves or looks can alter one's apprehension of that

person on a later occasion. Hockney is convinced that having recourse to information

gathered from past experience, in conjunction with the evidence of the moment, has allowed
him to make livelier and more animated faces than might otherwise have been possible.

Professional portrait painters, today as in the past, have tended to work on commission
and in so doing they have frequently produced official emblems of the sitter's status or

power, or at the very least reflections of their ideal self-image. The great portrait painters
such as Goya were able to transcend such circumstances and to produce psychologically
incisive rather than merely flattering images. In lesser hands the results too often are dull
and uninformative, telling us more than we might want to know about human vanity

but revealing frustratingly little about more urgent matters, such as the sitter's emotional

life or the nature of his or her relationship to the artist.

Recognizing the pitfalls of commissioned portraits, Hockney has consistently shunned

such offers, preferring to choose when and whom to draw and to concentrate on drawing
people who are already a vital part of his life. Almost all the drawings gathered together

here still belong to the artist. Many of them, such as the portraits of his parents

and those of his most valued friends such as Celia Birtwell, he has kept as much for

sentimental reasons as for their intrinsic quality. Often, of course, the most revealing
drawings are the ones of the people whom he knows most intimately. Hockney has made
occasional exceptions to his general rule of not drawing strangers at their own request,

usually out of an appreciation for the persons work; this was the case, for instance, with
his drawing of composer Harrison Birtwistle in 1970, of W. H. Auden in 1968, or of
the writer and academic Sir Isiah Berlin in 1980. Hockney remarks of commissions:

Nobody asks now because it's known that I won't do them, but many years ago people
thought, 'Oh, he'll paint portraits.' I didn't want to do that, andllet it be known that I did

not wish to be involved with those problems, really. That's all. But naturally I've always

liked drawing people, so one tends to draw one's friends and the people one knows around
you — anybody does. Occasionally when one wants to meet people it's a nice way if some-
body has askedyou to draw them andyou 'd like to meet them anyway.

In Hockney 's view there are certain obstacles to be overcome in drawing people on one's
first encounter with them. Although the artist might feel that he already knows some-
thing about them through their work, their faces will not be sufficiently familiar to him,
even if he has previously seen photographs of them, to be able to draw them without
stumbling over the task of first capturing their features.

I think the way I draw, the more I know and react to people, the more interesting the

drawings will be. I don't really like struggling for a likeness. It seems a bit of a waste of
effort, in a sense, just doing that. And you'd never know, anyway. Ifyou don't know the
person, you don't really know ifyou vegot a likeness at all. You can't really see everything
in the face. I think it takes quite a lot of time.

There are other rewards, too, in repeatedly drawing the same person over a period of
time. A natural by-product of the activity has been that each drawing potentially captures
another facet of each sitter, the process of aging, and their changing moods, while
also charting the shift in their relationship with the artist. The painter who in the late
1960s was the subject of a film called David Hockney 's Diaries agrees that the totality of
his drawings constitute a kind of visual diary of his life, although he maintains that
the same would hold true for any artist who has set out to depict the visible world. There

are, of course, those critics of Hockney's work who have ungenerously seen this absorp-
tion in his personal circumstances as evidence of a narcissistic self-obsession. I would
prefer to turn this interpretation on its head, for in my view one of the great strengths

of the artist's work has been his devouring curiosity in the life around him. Christopher
Isherwood remembered that on one of his first meetings with Hockney, the artist set

himself the task of making a drawing of every object in the motel room in which he was
staying. It is thanks to his unflinching delight in the act of depiction and to his constant
practice of drawing that he has been able to continue reinventing for himself, according
to the circumstances, the most appropriate means of recording his observations. It is this

process, in fact, that has propelled his work forward not according to the dictates of a self-

proclaimed avantgarde but as the result of a personal vision and idiosyncratic imagination.

In his foreword to Jeffery Camp's manual, Draw: How to Master the Art, published in

1981. Hockney began with a comparison of learning to draw with learning how to write.
The difference between the two, he remarked, is that in writing it is above all the beauty

of the ideas which one enjoys, whereas with drawing it is the beauty not only of the

ideas but of the marks themselves and of the feelings that they represent. This may seem
an oversimplification, but it does highlight the essential subjectivity which for Hockney
has always characterized the act of making a depiction. Even when his work was at its

most classicizing, in elegant and controlled line drawings of the later 1960s and 1970s
such as the 1970 portrait of Cecil Beaton, his hand was guided as much by his feelings
towards the person portrayed as by a desire to represent his appearance in as economical
a manner as possible. With Hockney's move in recent years towards an ever greater
subjectivity of vision, his use of this admittedly more detached and restrained techique

has become less and less frequent.

I don't generally draw quite like that now, in the sense that somebody sits there. And to
make line drawings like I did, you have to look rather hard, and draw rather slowly
the line, and I draw rather rarely that way now, very, very rarely. In a way, what I have
been trying to move away from is the fixed viewpoint. Well, that kind of line drawing

on the whole works because you feel it s accurate, you feel the line has got the volume,
or the line has got the person. The line is doing all the work. The viewer knows that.

And somehow the way the line is used there I feel I've explored. Id rather explore
it another way now.

The photographic experiments that Hockney has been pursuing obsessively since 1982.

a rephrasing of the multiple viewpoints of Cubism in the form of composite images,

have so fundamentally altered his conception of the kind of information that one can
convey in a picture that he has felt compelled to develop equivalent techniques in his
drawing and painting. His discoveries with the camera, and the theories he has developed
on the advantages of a "moving focus" over the fixed one-point perspective devised in

the Renaissance, have effected startling transformations in his hand-wrought images.

The photographic work affects everything. In a way what I was attempting to do was to

make a new kind ofpictorial space that photography could use. Well, I think I began to do

that, really. Once you transform photography in that way, you transform all pictures, don't

you? The difference is that you are in one picture — the space it's about contains you —
whereas the other does not. The traditional one-point perspective picture is of a space that
does not relate to you. You 're in a separate space. Picasso 's space engulfs you, you re in it.

It's very different.

It took me a long time to understand what Juan Gris meant when he said, 'Cubism is

not a style, it's a way of life. T understand what the statement means now. He's right. But

in a way I think this has been a great problem. Cubism is a style, but not in an ordinary
sense. It's a very different way of looking and depicting, and as such it's not very well
understoodyet. People still refer to an ordinary, conventional picture as if it's very real.

In responding to any art, the viewer must begin by yielding to the conventions that the

artist is using. Essentially this is simply the equivalent in painting and drawing to what
Coleridge termed 'the willing suspension of disbelief in literature. As most of us,

however, have been accustomed to regard as 'realism' a direct form of representation

based on a fixed position, any idiom based on Cubist notions is still likely to be unfamiliar
and in the first instance to seem artificial and willed. Just as Hockney has been training
himself to draw and to conceive of space in more fluid terms, so we as viewers are now in

the position of having to learn to look at pictures in a different way.

In a way modern art hasn't triumphed yet! Because were still stuck with the Renaissance
picture — which is the photograph — and we believe it's the most vivid representation of
reality. Until that alters, we're stuck. It's a naive idea, essentially.

The relationship between the hand-drawn and photographed image has constituted one of
the central debates within Hockney s work for more than two decades now, beginning
with his first extended stay in Los Angeles in 1964, when he began regularly to rely on
snapshots as reference material for the making of his paintings. By the end of that decade

he had developed a form of naturalism which owed much to the 35mm camera and
which brought him close to the tenets of Photo-Realism, although only rarely did he base

an entire canvas on a single photograph. In spite of the fact that he took more and more
photographs as time went on, as recently as 1980 he remained adamant that it was not
sufficient simply to record through the lens of a camera: the hand, not just the eye,

had to be involved in order to achieve a synthesis of vision and emotion. In 1982, when he
began to produce complex picture puzzles in the form of a grid of Polaroid photographs,
the camera for a time became his preferred tool as an artist, manipulated precisely as a
means of enlarging the possibilities of depiction. During this past year he has begun to
work with an even more direct form of printing, the photocopier. None of these
activities, however, have changed Hockney's mind about the preeminence of the hand-
drawn image, although there is no doubt that the evolution of his drawing style owes
much to his discoveries in these other media.

Hockney's current experiments with xeroxes, which he calls borne made prints, have
already begun to have repercussions on other aspects of his work, including his ideas both
about drawing and about catalogue design. He has bought himself four photocopiers,

each of which has particular functions and attributes, and has begun to use them as a
direct and spontaneous way of producing limited edition original prints that could not have
come about through any other process. Starting in every case with an image freely and
vigorously drawn on a sheet of paper, he photocopies this in a chosen colour, perhaps
passing it twice through the machine in order to intensify the hue. He then draws a
separate element on another piece of paper, duplicating this in another colour on the pre-

viously photocopied sheet. This process is repeated through perhaps ten printings in much
the same way that he might previously have had a lithographic printer produce an image
from a number of individual plates. The finished print is not a copy of anything else, for it

exists only in that form, the result of layer upon layer of colour. To Hockney these prints

are intricately bound with his drawing, for in his view what he has been doing is drawing
'inside' the machine.

// was just a hunch. I thought the machines were not quite what the manufacturers said
they were, so I started playing with them and within three weeks I realized that nobody
had really explored them en much when compared to what I was getting out of them.
i

The xerox machine is really fascinating me, because I realize it's a camera and a printing
machine. It's not a copier — I mean, it's not a copying machine — and the implications

of that are fascinating me. That's what I've been delving into. The area even of what is a
reproduction I think is an area that artists have to deal with, and Ifind myself strongI \

drawn to those questions. The xerox machine opened up an amazing area that I certain!]

didn't think was there. Nobody else did. I don't think. It's a totally new kind ofprinting
that is very beautiful ifyou know about it, ifyou know what to do.

Photocopying techniques have come directly into play into Hockney's design for this
book. Having decided that drawings often appear diminished in their power or difficult
to see when reproduced — because, for instance, so much of the page will be squandered
on blank paper — Hockney wished to represent each portrait drawing simply by a detail of

the face, enlarged to nearly life-size so that it would fill the entire page. In all cases the
heads have been repeatedly enlarged on the photocopier, sometimes from the drawing
itself and at other times from a photograph of it, gradually changing the quality of the

line. Given that any reproduction entails treating the image at one remove from the
original, Hockney decided that it would be preferable to make a virtue of this fact and to
use drawings made over a period of nearly twenty years as the raw material for a new
sequence of images that is complete unto itself. He has, in effect, re-drawn each of the
faces.

As anyone who has played with a photocopier will have discovered, each time that an

image is duplicated it is slightly degraded in definition, particularly if it is being enlarged

at the same time. Hockney has made this characteristic a virtue. The head of Celia
which now appears to gaze towards her young son is as brutally reduced to black and
white as if it had been rubber-stamped onto the page. Claude Bernard's flattened image
looks as though it has been gouged out as a woodcut. Even the line drawings, which

best retain their definition, seem unfamiliar in their monumentality and in the boldness,

even ferocity, of some of the magnified marks. Each image has taken on a new life and
adopted a different identity, transformed by the same freedom of gesture that is one of the
inescapable characteristics of Hockney 's draftmanship in the 1980s.

In concentrating one's attention entirely on the heads, Hockney, with a powerful sim-
plicity, makes the vital point that portraiture constitutes a confrontation between two
personalities: first between the artist and sitter, then between the sitter and the spectator.
In using his design to blur the distinction between one medium and another, and to pair

images produced years apart from each other and in varied techniques, reformulated as
an altered set of marks, he also makes a strong case for all of his work to be seen as facets
of a single unified activity. Hockney says that it is only in the last two years that even
he has begun to appreciate the subconscious interconnections that make sense of what at

times has seemed like a disparate oeuvre.

1 think the thing that runs through everything is, in fact, a kind of attitude about space.
It's the thing that links everything: photography, theatre, drawings, paintings, prints.

I think it's all in the early work as well. People trying to get out ofpictures. People trying
to make pictures bigger. Pictures in front ofpictures within pictures. I don't think it was
that conscious early on, but it's certainly there, it's a similar subject and I think, now I can
see myself, I can feel it myself.

The pictures that follow seek to overturn a great many preconceptions not only about the
continuity of Hockney 's work, but also about the function of reproductions. If it is not
enough, as the artist seems to suggest, simply to present a pale approximation of the
appearance of the original, then means must be devised to guarantee the lasting potency
of its physical presence and of its hold over our imagination. In this way the work of
art may yet retain what Walter Benjamin so aptly termed its 'aura': not just in spite of

but by means of collaboration with the forms of mechanical reproduction which may
once have seemed to pose such a threat. Thanks, moreover, to all this machinery — the

camera that photographed the drawing, the photocopier that enlarged the photograph,
and the printing presses that have made widely available these photocopied enlargements
we are brought once again into intimate contact with the human presences wrought by
the artist's eye. mind and hand.
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Illustrations

All illustrations are details from drawings whose full dimensions are given below. Height
precedes width; all measurements are in inches.

1. Mother. Bradford. 18th February. 1978 21. Sirlsiah Berlin with Eyes Closed, 1980
Sepia ink, 14x11 Ink on paper, 17x14

2. My Father, W2 22. Jerry Sobn VII. 1984

Ink on paper. 17x14 Charcoal on paper. 30x 22V2
Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York
3. Charles Abn, 1969
Ink on paper, 17x14 23. Horst Bienek (Four Quartets), 1983
Charcoal on paper. 58 x 22V2
4. Ian in a Wicker Chair I, 1982 Richard Gray Gallery. Chicago
Sepia ink, 22Vi>x30
24. Bedford Sketch No. 6. 1978
5. Stephen Spender, 1981 Sepia ink. 14x11
Crayon. 14x17
25. Sirlsiah Berlin Reading. 1980
6. Ann, April 1984 Ink on paper, 17x14
Charcoal on paper. 30x22V2
26. Abuo Shakra Restaurant. Cairo. 1978
7. Christopher Isherwood I, 1984 Ink on paper, 8 x 10
Ink on paper. 30x22V2
27. Gregory, 1979
8. Jerry Sobn IV, 1984 Ink on paper, 14x17
Charcoal on paper, 30x 22V2
28. Gregory. London. 1980
9. Mother, Bradford. 27th June 1983
Ink on paper. 14x17
Ink on paper, 30x22V2
29. Self Portrait with Striped Shirt and Tie. 1983
10. Celia in a Negligee. Paris, November 1973 Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
Crayon, 25^x19^
30. Mr. Lin in Armchair. China, 1981
1 1 My Father with a Bow Tie. 1974 Sepia and wash. 19 x/2 x 17
Crayon, 17x14
3 1 Guide. Stan, China, 1981
1 2. David Grai es Reading and Drinking. 1983
[

Black ink. 17x14

Ink on paper. 14x17
32. Self-Portrait with Mouth Open. 1983
13- Henry and Eugene (Henry), 1978 Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
Ink on paper, 14x17
33 . Yves Marie and Mark ( Yves Marie). Paris.
14. Henry and Eugene (Eugene), 1978 October 1975
Ink on paper, 14x17
Red conte crayon, 25V2X 19 x/2
1 5. Celia in Red and White Dress. 1972
34. Yves Marie and Mark (Mark). Paris.
Crayon, 17x14
October 1975
16. Cecil Beaton, WO Red conte crayon. 25V2 x 19V2
Ink on paper, 14x17
35. Self Portrait with Tie. 1983
17. Mother, 1979 Charcoal on paper. 30x22V2
Ink on paper. 17 x 14
36. Self Portrait with Cigarette. 1983
Charcoal on paper. 30x22V2
18. Portrait of Father, 1974
Crayon. 25 V^xl9 3/4
37. Self-Portrait. 30th September. 1983
19. Gregory, 1978 Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
Crayon, 17x14
38. Jerry Sohn III. 1984
20. Henry Sleeping, 1978 Charcoal on paper.
Ink on paper, 14x17
39. Celia in Black Slip, Reclining, Paris, 56. Mo McDermott II, 1984
December 1973 Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
Crayon, \9Vix TMi
57. Celia in a Pink Slip, Paris, October 1973
40. Peter Asleep, Dream Inn, Santa Cruz, 1966 Crayon, 25 VixWi
Pencil and crayon, 14 x 17
58. Albert Clark, Los Angeles, August 1981
41. Sir Isiah Berlin, 1980 Sepia ink, 27 VixWA
Ink on paper, 21x1 2 l/i
59. Self-Portrait with Finger Behind Glasses,
42. Dr. Leon Banks, Los Angeles, 1967 1983
Pencilon paper, 24 x 19 Charcoal on paper, 19x25 1/2
Dr. Leon Banks
60. Jerry Sohn II, 1984
43. Self-Portrait, 25th October, 1983 Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
Charcoal on paper, 22 x I8V2
61. Celia Wearing Checked Sleeves, 1973
44. Ann, April 1984 Crayon, 25 VzxWA
Charcoal on paper. 30x22V2
62. Self-Portrait, 28th September 1983
45. Self-Portrait, 26th September, 1983 Charcoal on paper, 30x22 /21

Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2

63. Peter Schlesinger, 1978
46. Celia, May 1984 Crayon, 17x14
Crayon on paper, 30x22V2
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago
64. Mother with Crossword Puzzle, June 1983
Ink on paper, 30 x 22V2
47. Celia in Black Dress ivith Red Stockings, 1973
Crayon on paper, 25V2X 19V2 65. Celia Nude, 1975
Crayon, 25 ^xl9#
48. Harrison Birtwistle, 1970
Ink on paper, 17x14 66. Self-Portrait with Check Jacket, 1983
Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
49. Mother Sleeping,^! 1)
Ink on paper, 17x14 67. Jerry Sohn V, 1984
Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
50. Stephen Seated, China, 1981
Wash and crayon, 17x14 68. Sir Isiah Berlin, 1980
Ink on paper, 30 x 22V2
5 1 Claude Bernard, 197 5
Red crayon, 25V2X 19^2 69. Billy Wilder, 1983
Charcoal on paper, 30x22V2
52. Self-Portrait, 12th September, 1983
70. Celia in a Black Slip, Reclining, Paris,
Charcoal on paper, 22V2X 19
December 1973
53. Self-Portrait with Striped Shirt, 1983 Crayon, 25^ x 19^2
Charcoal on paper, 30 x 22V2
71. Self-Portrait from the Side, 1983
54. Celia in Black Dress with Flowers, 1972 Charcoal on paper, 24x19
Color crayon on paper, 17 x 14

55. Mother, Bradford, 19th February, 1978

Sepia ink, 14x11
Hockney's People: Notes to the Plates
by Marco Livingstone

Laura and Kenneth Hocknev emptiness that awaits her now that her partner
(nos. 1.2.9. 11. 17. 18.49. 55.64) of nearly fifty years has died. In the drawing done
a day later, her gaze is directed at the artist, as if
When the misrepresentation of Hocknev as a fun- through the act of drawing itself they were able
loving sun-worshipper finally gives way to to share their pain with each other and to express
a more accurate assessment of his seriousness, without recourse to words their need for mutual
it be thanks in some measure to the moving
will comfort. More recent portraits show her coping
portraits that he has made of his parents over well with life on her own. In the portrait of 27
many years. In the mid-1970s he produced some June. 1983 she appears to be embraced, almost
double portraits, both drawn and photographed, engulfed, by a comfortable old chair cross-hatched
as studies towards a painting which he executed in the manner of Hockney's 1975 stage designs
in two versions, the first completed in 197 5 and for Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress.
the second (now in the Tate Gallery. London) two In another drawing produced on this same visit
years later. His original plan was to incorporate a to his native Bradford, Mother with Crossword
self-portrait in the mirror as a means of making Puzzle, she is depicted deep in concentration but
explicit the theme of the painting as a study not also in a continuous flow of action. Her hands
only of his parents' relationship with each other are a flurry of movement, one moment resting
but also of his emotional involvement with both on her forehead, the next busily writing down the
of them. As is so often the case with Hockney's responses as they come to her. It is an affectionate
double portraits, much can be read into the and lively portrayal fitting of its subject.

separateness of the postures adopted by the two

sitters. He later recalled that one of the things
that most interested him in the subject was to Charles Alan 1969 (no. 3)

make allusion to the ways in which people who

have lived together for many years can communi- Hockney's first exhibitions in New York, held in
cate other than just by talking. In most of the 1964 and 1967, were held at Charles Alan's gal-
studies and in both versions of the painting, his lery. The sitter, who
has since died, is described
father sits patiently but with a distracted air.
by the simply as "a very nice man. a charm-
artist

apparently lost in thought or. in the later painting, ing man! Impassive in his stance, patient and

immersed book. His mother, on the other

in a
unflinching in his return of the artist's gaze. Alan
in this drawing gives away no more of himself
hand, faces the artist squarely and gives him her
full attention.
than can be gathered from Hockney's straight-
forward description.
it is the ones of
In the individual portraits, too.
Hockney's mother which seem psychologically
more incisive. The 1972 ink drawing of the father, Ian in Wicker Chair 1 1982 (no. 4)
wealth of observation, but
for instance, contains a
these are primarily notations of purely visual Ian Falconer was in his early twenties and had
phenomena — of, for instance, the spatial shifts not known Hocknev long when this portrait was
produced when one looks through a pane of drawn. Himself an artist of considerable promise,
glass — or of the attributes with which the sitter he is shown here in an expectant mood, the
invented for himself, such as his self-consciously patterns of broken lines suggesting a nervous
dapper mode of dress or his eccentric habit of energy that belies the apparent composure of his
wearing more than one wrist-watch. In observing stance. The irregular hatchings by which Hocknev
such habits of self-presentation, Hocknev is, of defines the form of the chin, left cheek and fore-
course, telling us something about the character head seem to operate here not so much as a
of the person.The impassive expression which stylistic device but as part of the process of getting
Hockney's father holds in the two crayon drawings to know the contours of his friend's face.
of 1974. however, gives his face a somewhat
mask-like appearance that holds us at a distance.
Stephen Spender 1981 (no. 5)
Hockney's mother, by contrast, seems generally Stephen Seated. China 1981 (no. 50)
to have been a much more willing conspirator in
Guide. Sian, China 1981 (no. 3D
the making of her portraits. Among the most
moving are the drawings of 18th February. 1978. Mr. Lin in Armchair. China 1981 (no. 30)
the day before his father's funeral, and of the day
of the funeral service itself. In the earlier of the In May 1981 Hocknev made a three-week tour
two drawings reproduced here. Hockney's mother of mainland China, accompanied by his friends

seems to be staring into space, contemplating the Gregory Evans and the poet Stephen Spender, at
the instigation of Nikos Stangos of Thames and Celia Birtwell (nos. 10, 15, 39, 46, 47, 54, 57,
Hudson. The idea was to gather together suffi- 61,65,70)
cient visual and written material — drawings and
photographs by Hockney, paired with Spender's Hockney first met fabric designer Celia Birtwell

diaristicaccount of the journey —

for it to be pub- in about 1965 but got to know her better
lished as a book, China Diary, in the following only on his return to London from California in
year. The trip was not without its disappointments. the late 1960s, partly as a result of her growing
Hockney found, for instance, that it was almost friendship with Peter Schlesinger. In 1969 she
impossible to make as full a record as he would married fashion designer Ossie Clark, whom the
have wished in the form of drawings; each day artist had known since 1961, staying with him

was so eventful that he would have had to devise through a rather tempestuous relationship until
a more rapid technique to note down his observa- the mid 1970s.
tions, and often he would find himself giving away
One of the most remarkable aspects of Hockney s
drawings almost as he did them. He therefore drawings of Celia is the way in which they ack-
decided to rely more on the camera, and to pro- nowledge her sensuality without being sexual in
duce some pictures from memory on his return to their outlook. In the artist's view the sensuality
the West. Hockney s other complaint was that it
of the drawings, particularly of the ones done of
was difficult to get to know the local people. As her wearing a negligee or slip in Paris in Novem-
he explained in the epilogue to the book, "there ber and December 1973, was very much a re-
were only about four or five Chinese people with
flection of her personality rather than just of his
whom we made any real contact, all guides!' Mr. feelings towards her. "After all, she's a very fem-
Lin Hua, the guide who took charge of them
inine woman, not a masculine woman, and a very
during the whole of their trip, was described in
sweet-natured, gentle person!'
Spender's diary as "rotund, smiling with com-
manding intelligent features — so there was some
affinity in his appearance to those photographs Christopher Isherwood 1 1984 (no. 7)
of Mao Tse-tung which one sees everywhere in
China — as though we had a miniature Great Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, a por-
Helmsman as our guide!' In conversation with trait painter and Isherwood's companion since
Spender the following January in Los Angeles, 1953, became friends with Hockney almost
Hockney recalled: "With our change of mood, immediately on meeting him in 1964, and were
the first person we looked at differently each time drawn and painted by him on numerous occasions
was Mr. Lin. When we were convinced China was in subsequent years. They were the subject, for
a police state, we saw Mr. Lin as a bit of a monster; instance, for one of the artist's most celebrated
when we'd forgotten about it, Mr. Lin was just double portraits, painted in 1968 with the
the charming man that he appeared to us to be!" couple's living room as the setting. Hockney was
house by the sea and in
a frequent caller to their
1984 painted a huge panoramic memory-picture
Ann April 1984 (2 drawings) (nos. 6, 44)
based on just such an occasion, A Visit with
Christopher and Don, Santa Monica Canyon, for
Ann Upton has known Hockney since 1960,
which this drawing served as one of the studies.
literally more than half a lifetime ago for both
In the previous year Isherwood had published the
of them. As she succinctly points out, "I knew He
last volume of his autobiography, October.
David with black hair!' She was living a street
died about a year after this drawing was made.
away from him in the Earl's Court neighborhood
He isremembered not only for the Berlin stories
with the painter Michael Upton, who was study
of the 1930s which first established his name, but
ing at the Royal
later they
Academy Schools. Six
moved, like Hockney, to the Notting
months
also for the plays co-written with W
H. Auden,
a number of and several volumes
later novels,
Hill district. She did some modelling for Roger
deeply revealing of his beliefs and of the circum-
de Grey at the Royal College, but was not drawn
stances of his life. He celebrated his eightieth
by Hockney until shortly after he had ceased being
birthday in the year in which this portrait was
a student there in 1962. She recalls that she
drawn, and on that day The Sunday Times pub-
knew little about his work at the time but was
lished an affectionate profile on him by his lifelong
attracted by his personality. "He always had a very
friend Stephen Spender. The poet remarked on
funny way of looking at things which appealed to
his "seemingly unblinking eyes" and vividly des-
me. I came to London when I was about 16 — I
cribed the face that fully retained its character
more or less ran away from home — and we had
even with the evident passing of the years: "His
something in common. We were both vegetarians,
squarish head on which the closely cropped hair
and we lived near each other and got very pally!"
bristles, has the look of being painted sculpture,
with the incisive almost straight lines of the // took me a long time to realize that the WO)

forehead extending round the temples, the sharp Picasso can draw, where you see the front and back
prongs of two upright lines between the thatch of of the figure, is not distorted, it isn't a distortion
the eyebrows, and the curved lines bracketing at all. Well, when you realize that, you begin to
the decisive mouth!" realize how in a war more real it is. you want to
get involved. But it's not east actually, what
I met Isherwood through Hockney on three occa-
Picasso did. That whole idea is not easy, but in a
sions in 1980. On first meeting him. at a dinner
sense that's what I'm going towards, because it's
party in his ownwas so struck by his
house. I
more real.
benevolent nature, warm and charming manner
and easy smile that I had to remind myself that As early drawing of Sohn. the
as the second
this was no longer the dashing young author of sitter's begun to be dramatically
features have
Goodbye to Berlin but a 75-year-old man. On manipulated, the chin, above all. displaced from
seeing him again I began to notice his age — not its expected position as marked by a faint outline.

just the wrinkles but the ebb and flow of his The next drawing directs our attention to his
energy —although such matters still seemed to slightly puffy-looking cheeks, then to the contours
lie on the surface, only occasionally masking of his nose, briefly and improbably picturing him
the still youthful spirit and voracious curiosity in in a seductive pose —
arms raised over his head
other human beings which made him such a re and with a come-hither expression and fluttering
markable person. Hockney "s portrait captures eyelashes —
before finally presenting us boldly
well Isherwood's continuing optimism in the face with a full-face image in which the sitter appears
of life, while sparing us none of the details of the almost to be rubbing noses with us. By the end of
ravages of old age. In its tenderness and concern, the sequence the viewer has the sensation of
it is as moving an image as the best of Hockney s having been given a guided tour of the geography
portraits of his parents. of this young man's face.

JerrvSohnII-VIIi983 David Graves Reading and Drinking 1983

(nos. 8. 22. 38.60.67) (no. 12)

Hockney s theories on moving focus and on the David Graves made Hockney s acquaintance at the
continuing potential of Cubist methods of picture- opening night of The Rake's Progress at Glynde-
making are vividly demonstrated in the sequence bourne. Sussex, on midsummer's day 1975.
of charcoal drawings that he made of Jerry Sohn Although a practicing sculptor, he was working
in 1984. Sohn. who
has worked for Hockney as at the time as a paper restorer at Petersburg Press

a part-time assistant on and off over the last few with a studio almost immediately opposite Hock-
years and who also works for other painters such ney s in London. By the end of the' 1970s he was
as Sam Francis, agreed to sit for Hockney. Only working directly for Hockney as an all-purpose
the drawing, however, was made from life,
first assistant, helping with the stage sets and later
the subsequent images developing in response with the preparation and editioning of Hockney s
to each other as they were pinned up on the wall. composite photographs.
The process was basically one of moving ever Graves although he was doing a con-
recalls that
closer to the subject, examining the different siderable work for Hockney by 1979.
amount of
facets of the face with recourse to the evidence it was only in 1982 or 1983 that he began to
of previous drawings and to memory. A face, appear in the artist's drawings. "David prefers to
Hockney reminds us, is not frozen or fixed in know a person quite well before drawing them, to
form as would be the case with an inanimate get to know how their face works!" The portrait
object, but through the individual's
is altered reproduced here was made on a visit to Monte
expressions and actions and through one's own Carlo. "I was reading a copy of The Times by the
changing position in relation to him. When we look of it, and I didn't even notice what was going
form a mental image of people, it is more likely on until after it was done. I think it was done
that we would imagine them not as flat and very quickly!"
motionless but in the midst of a characteristic
act. It is this kind of experience of another person
The simultaneous actions of reading and drinking
are captured with the aid of devices developed in
for which Hockney is now intent on finding an
equivalent, convinced as he is that it is not suffi-
Hockney s Cubist-inspired composite photographs
of the period. Retaining a grasp of the sitter's
cient merely to record a likeness. To this end
identitythrough the shorthand identification of
Hockney is prepared to take liberties with indiv-
and large glasses. Hockney directs
his hair-line
idual features for the sake both of expressiveness
our attention to the movements of the head and
and of a convincing sensation of movement.
hands in a kind of juggling act all the more Hockney was still a student when he met Beaton
fascinating because of its very ordinariness and in the early 1960s. Theyit off immediately
hit
familiarity. The sense of continuous movement and the young something of an enfant
painter,
as a series of separate actions displays the kind of terrible for his own generation, soon became a
realism that Hockney now sees as a primary goal: regular visitor to Beaton's home, Reddish House,
a truth to lived experience rather than simply a at Broadchalke, Wiltshire. For Hockney it was a
recording of the appearance of a single
static natural reaction on such visits occasionally to
person or object. pick up a sketchbook in order to make a drawing
of his host. In May 1969 he produced a group of
drawings in response to a request from Beaton
Henry and Eugene 1978 (no. 13) for a portrait to be published in Vogue. Hockney
Henry Sleeping 1978 (no. 20) recalls that Beaton was going to photograph him
and that he, in return, was to draw him. "I did
Henry Geldzahler has been an active figure in the actually probably about fifteen drawings, because
New York art world since the early 1960s, as a if I liked it Cecil didn't, and if Cecil liked it I
friend and promoter of major contemporary artists didn't. To get one that kind of pleased us both was
such as Andy Warhol, as a writer and critic, as a not easy. I think this particular one is one that
curator at the Metropolitan Museum and later as Cecil probably didn't like!" The drawing reproduc-
Cultural Commissioner for New York City. Hock- ed here was made in the following year. In it the
ney got to know him quite early in his career, and sharply-defined and rather handsome features, the
still has in one of his early photograph albums a bemused expression and even the jaunty angle
picture taken in 1963 by Dennis Hopper in which of the hat all play a part in capturing the urbane
he and Warhol appear together with Geldzahler. public image of the man without sacrificing the

Henry has accompanied Hockney on some of his sense of relaxed intimacy of the occasion.
world travels, and the many portraits made of
him, candid views of the private man rather than
Gregory 1978 (no. 19)
the public figure, are a subject in themselves.
Gregory, London 1980 (no. 28)
Hockney 's close friends, all of whom have had to
learn to take it in their stride when they are being
Gregory Evans, who was for nearly a decade as
surreptitiously drawn, enjoy telling a story which
much Hockney 's assistant as his companion, ap-
reflects not only on the personalities of both
Hockney 's drawings in many contrasting
pears in
Hockney and Geldzahler but also on their playful
moods and guises, sometimes boyishly vulnerable,
habit of deflating each others pretensions. Having
as in the 1976 lithograph Gregory with Gym
noticed that Hockney was looking in his direction
Socks, sometimes withdrawn, as in the 1978
and drawing in a sketch-pad, Geldzahler obligingly
crayon drawing, or even tense and harrassed, as
began to pose and preen himself so as to put
in the ink drawing done two years later. Hockney s
forward what he felt was his best image. Hockney
portraits of him, as of other sitters, never appear
would look up, squint at his companion, and
tosit in judgment, but merely observe with
return to his pad, finally standing up and walk-
sympathy and frankness.
ing off, leaving the pad behind him. Anxious to
examine the result, Geldzahler walked across to
pick up the pad to discover not the latest recording Sir Isiah Berlin 1980 (nos. 21, 25, 41, 68)
of his face but a carefully-drawn image of Mickey
Mouse. Hockney the practical joker was also Sir Isiah Berlin's distinguished academic career
making a point, which is that he prefers to draw has included a period as a lecturer in Philosophy,
people at their ease, behaving naturally, rather as Chichele Professor of Social and Political
than sitting stiffly as if they were having their Theory at Oxford University from 1957 to 1967,
photograph taken. Drawing people while they are and as President of Wolfson College, Oxford, from
asleep may seem a slight invasion of privacy, but 1966 to 1975. A Fellow of All Souls College,
is clearly a useful ploy in circumventing artificial Oxford, his many publications include a study
stances and unwanted formality. on Karl Marx (first published in 1939), The Age
of Enlightenment (1956), Four Essays on Liberty
Cecil Beaton (1969 ), Russian Thinkers 1978 and Personal
( )

1 9 70 (no. 16)
Impressions (1980). He has also produced trans-
lations of Russian novels; his edition of Turgenev's
One of Britain's most famous photographers,
stage designers and society figures, Cecil Beaton
A Month in the Country was published in 1980,
the year in which Hockney 's portraits of him
also had the distinction of being
one of the first
people to buy a painting from Hockney, a rather
were drawn.
racy work of 1960 titled Adhesiveness after Walt Stephen Spender acted as a go-between on behalf
Whitmans term for bonding and camaraderie be- who wanted a drawing by
of All Souls College,
tween men. Hockney of Sir Isiah for their collection. Like
the portrait of Harrison Birtwistle. this is one of naturalism that had temporarily held back his
the rare occasions in which Hockney allowed imaginative faculties in the mid 1970s. It was
himself to be persuaded to draw someone he did therefore a fitting tribute to Tyler to have taken
not know out of a curiosity to meet the sitter. Abou t him as the subject of some of the first drawings
twenty drawings resulted from sittings which took in which this dramatic change in his stylewas
place over the course of a week. Sir Lsiah was in first made manifest.
his early seventies at the time. Hockney recalls the
occasions with pleasure.
Yves Marie and Mark, Paris October 1975
He would come and visit me. I did a few in (nos. 33, 34)
Oxford, I even went and had lunch with him at
All Souls College, which was quite amusing; he Yves-Marie, the subject of several drawings exe-
showed me all around. Otherwise he came to cuted by Hockney during his extended stay in
London and would sit talking all the time. It took Paris from 1973 to the end of 1975, seems to per-
me quite a time even to get likenesses, but I very sonify for him the attractions of a French notion
much enjoyed him. of masculinity at once softer and more sensual
than one would normally encounter in English-
speaking countries.
Horst Bienek (Four Quartets) 1983 (no. 23)
Engrossed in his reading. Yves Marie nonchalantly
Horst Bienek is an East German novelist now res- accepts the companionship of another young man.
iding in West Germany; little of his work has yet completely nude, as if it would not even occur to
been translated into English. Hockney met him him that such an erotically-charged encounter
in California and assented to the writer's request between men were anything but the most natural
for a portrait which could be printed on the and ordinary event.
dustjacket of one of his books. The sitter seems
blissfully oblivious to the fact that his chair, at
least asit appears in this drawing, seems in im-
Self-portraits 1983
(nos. 29, 32, 35, 36, 37, 43, 45.
minent danger of collapse. Such are the pleasures,
it would seem, of being drawn by a master.
52.53.62.66.71)

In 1980 1 Hockney at length in

interviewed
Bedford Sketch no. 6 1978 (no. 24) preparation for the book that I was writing on

his work. Why. I asked him then, had he never

Kenneth Tyler, the master printer who ran the really drawn himself, given that many artists have
Gemini lithographic workshop in Los Angeles maintained that they are their own ideal model,
before setting up his own workshop near New not only the cheapest but also the most patient
York City, has collaborated closely with Hockney and the most readily available?
on much of his recent graphic work. In 1978 he
I don't know, really. Henry Geldzahler is always
persuaded Hockney to visit his workshop for an
urging me to do self-portraits. I think I would if I
extended period and to try a new technique using
was left alone more. I think I know myself rea-
. .

paper pulp dipped in dyes; Hockney took to the

sonably well. I think first of all you'd have to be a
medium with an infectious enthusiasm and pro- little more alone to do it and deal with it. which
duced one of his boldest and most vibrant series
of course Id like to be now a lot of the time.
of images, the Paper Pools. This ink drawing of
Tyler at work with the paper pulp is one of a group But. I persisted, if drawing way of getting
is a

produced by him during that frantic burst of to know somebody, then seem a bit odd
it did
activity in a free and impetuous reed pen tech- that he hadn't yet found the occasion to draw him-
nique that had its roots in the work of Van Gogh self. It was as though he was stopping short of

and Matisse and beyond them in oriental art. It examining himself too closely.
may be that Hockney s delight in discovering There's something of that in it, I think, that I do
his own boldness with colour encouraged him stop short. I admit I avoid some things about
simultaneously to experiment with a much looser myself as I avoid some things about life. Violence
drawing technique, in which the varying weight I shy away from completely even though I know
and organic character of the line suggests that it's possible to find some poetry there or beaut).
it is now capable not only of identifying the con- I must admit that horrifies me, actually, probabh
tours of the image but also of acting as a kind of way 1 don't know how to deal with. I think
in a
conductor of energy. In his introduction to the my work develops very slowly. It takes me a long
book published on the Paper Pools. Hockney time to find out things, and of course I do belie re
commented that he had never worked with any- my work will get better, richer. I also assume that
one with more energy than Tyler, implicitly giving in the end I'll deal with things that 1 avoided
him credit for inspiring him to free himself when I was younger, partly because you will face
of the constraints of academic drawing and them more, anyway.
Hockney agreed that the act of drawing people position sometimes experiences such moods, or
tended to bring out their more solemn aspects. looks as scruffy and bleary-eyed the first thing in
Perhaps, I suggested, this helped explain why he the morning he did on the 25th October —
as
had avoided drawing himself, that without being though, unlike most of us, he was able to
too conscious of it he may have been reluctant improvise a bleary-looking system of notation
to see the black side of his own personality. which articulated with great wit and control his
difficulties in focussing his eyes on that particu-
/ think that's true. I know I 'm going to have to
lar occasion. What I value above all in these
deal with it soon aware that
in myself. Partly I'm
drawings is Hockney s avowal of our common
in the past there was a certain innocence of vision
humanity, his readiness to depict himself with
and is there still at times, but I'm also aware that
the same honesty and casual forthrightness that
perhaps it can't go on, might not go on. It's not
has always marked his portraits of others.
going to change quickly, you 11 sense it only when
you look back at things. Ifyou don't know how to
deal with it, you put it aside, and anyway it will Peter Asleep, Dream Inn, Santa Cruz 1966
force itself in the end. I think if I looked at myself (no. 40)
carefully, it would probably be the end of that Peter Schlesinger 1978 (no. 63)
innocent vision. Maybe therefore I should do it. Abuo Shakra Restaurant, Cairo, 1978
Hockney did eventually come to draw himself in
1983, and as is his habit, once he decided to do Peter Schlesinger was an 18-year-old student at
so he took to the subject with extraordinary zeal. UCLA when Hockney met him while teaching
For a period of about six weeks he drew himself there in 1966. From 1966
to 1971, Peter was the
with the help of a mirror as the first act of artist's preferred model,embodying both an ideal
virtually every day. The group of thirteen drawings and reality. As Hockney recalled in 1980, "It was
reproduced here are from this series of about incredible to me to meet in California a young,
thirty-five images produced during that period. very sexy, attractive boy who was also curious
Hockney did not think of this as a task or project; and intelligent. In California you can meet curious
he simply decided one day that it would be inter- and intelligent people, but generally they're not
esting to do. "I just noticed that every time I the sexy boy of your fantasy as well. To me this
looked, there was something different, and you was incredible;was more real. The fantasy part
it

drew it differently!' He is thinking of repeating disappeared because it was the real person you
the exercise, having made some interesting could talk to!"

discoveries about himself the time around. first

The mood of Peter Asleep, Dream Inn, Santa
"I discovered I was getting older. I discovered
Cruz corresponds well to the name of the motel
that my face didn't quite look how I thought with-
in which they were staying. So strong is the at-
out scrutinizing it. Somehow they were quite
mosphere of somnolence and reverie that it seems
revealing to me!'
as though the crayoned areas of vivid colour above
A number of the self-portraits show Hockney full the sleeper's head are the product of his own
face, deep in concentration in the act of drawing subconscious imagination, rather than simply the
his own image; such is the case with those of the boundary of an ordinary room. The solidity and
28th and 30th September, with Self-Portrait with boldness of the colour contrasts sharply with the
Tie, and with Self Portrait with Striped Shirt and delicacy of the pencil line by which the figure has
Self Portrait with Check Jacket, in both of which, been conjured onto the page, the sensuousness of
as the titles suggest, his attention was attracted his skin merging with the tactility of the paper
as much to the patterns of his clothing as to the on which his image has materialized.
features of his face. He looks rather askance at
Peter has remained one of the artist's most valued
himself in Self-Portrait with Striped Shirt and Tie,
friends. Early in 1978 he was one of agroup of
and in his drawing of the 26th September he looks
friends who travelled with the artist to Egypt, the
rather stern and weary, still brandishing his draw-
main purpose of the journey being to produce
ing tools as the proud emblem of his vocation. On drawings and photographs that could serve as
occasion, as in Self-Portrait from the Side, his
source material in preparing designs for the new
curiosity is directed to looking at himself from
production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, to be
uncharacteristic angles, literally seeing himself as
staged at Glyndebourne Opera House in May of
others might see him. One of the most moving
that year. The portrait of Peter in Abuo Shakra
aspects of this series is the honesty with which he
Restaurant, Cairo, made during this visit, makes
represents his own occasional bouts of depression,
for an interesting comparison with the other por-
as in the dejected expression of his Self-Portrait
trait of him reproduced here, also dating from
ivith Cigarette or the Self-Portrait with Finger
1978. If I recall correctly, these are the very
Behind Glasses. It is curiously comforting to
drawings that the artist showed me in 1980 as
know that even someone with such a sunny dis-
evidence of his concern to capture different facets
of someone's personality:
evidence of his concern to capture different facets Mo McDermott 1983 (no. 56)
of someone's personality:

Look at these two drawings of Peter. There's a lot

Mo McDermott. himself an was part of
artist,
Hockney s London in the 1960s
circle of friends in
of difference in those faces, isn't there? The\ 're
and worked for him as an assistant on his paintings
both like him in a way. anybody that knows him
during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He has
would recognize the faces. This is the kind of
made sporadic appearances as a subject in Hock-
petulant side of Peter, and the other is the kind
ney s work as well as in the 1974 film made by
of innocent sweetness.
Jack Hazan. A Bigger Splash. He was the stand-
ing nude in one of Hockney s most engaging early
Leon Banks 1967 (no. 42) double portraits. Domestic Scene. Nutting Hill
1963. and in the previous year, shortly after they
Leon Banks, a Los Angeles pediatrician and art had met. he had already served as the model for
collector, lived near Hockney at the time that this one of Hockney s last student canvases. Life
was drawn and was a frequent visitor to his studio. Painting for AUse/f. This much later portrait was
He tried for many years to persuade the artist to drawn in Los Angeles, where he now lives.
paint his portrait, but. Hockney recalls today. "I
told him I didn't really do portraits just like that'.'
Albert Clark. Los Angeles August 1981
Banks did eventually get his wish over the winter
(no. 58)
of 1979 80 when he posed for one or two draw-
ings and a full-length seated portrait painted in
Children appear rarely in Hockney s work, not
acrylics on cardboard.
because he would find it too sentimental to use
them as subjects but because they do not figure
Harrison Birtwistle 1970 (no. 48) very largely in hislife or in his circle of friends. An

exception to this rule are the two sons of Celia

The curious but slightly wan expression on the Birtwell and Ossie Clark, whom Hockney has
face of this leading British composer, in his mid- watched grow up and whom he has periodically
something of the cir-
thirties at the time, reveals invited to stay with him While cap-
in California.

cumstances which prompted this and associated turing the slightly chubby appearance of a young
drawings. It was Hockney 's first meeting both adolescent's face. Hockney otherwise treats this
with Birtwistle and with another highly respected serious-looking boy not as a child but as a person-
composer of the same age. Peter Maxwell Davies. ality emerging into adulthood.
Peter Heyworth. the music critic of The Observer.
who in 1968 had introduced the artist to the poet
Billy Wilder 1983 (no. 69)
W H. Auden for a similar drawing session, asked
Hockney if he would be interested in drawing the
It was end of 1963 that Hockney first went
at the
two musicians, who were good friends at the time,
to Los Angeles, and in spite of his travels and
both separately and as a double portrait. Hockney
periods of residence elsewhere he has continued
knew and liked their music and therefore con-
to regard it as his main home. Contrary, however,
sented to the proposal. Birtwistle s quizzical
to the expectations that one might have of this
glance, his right eye half-shut as he scrutinizes
art world star. Hockney has never had much con-
the artist scrutinizing him. hints at the reflective
tact with glittering Hollywood society. Although
nature of the act which has brought together artist
a great fan of Billy Wilder s movies, in particular
and and which by extension places the
sitter,
such masterpieces as Some Like it Hot and Sunset
viewer in a similarly uncomfortable position of
Boulevard, it was in fact at the director's instig-
being examined.
ation that they met in the early 1970s. "He likes
pictures, he likes artists. He looked me up. and I

Claude Bernard 1975 (no. 51) enjoyed him enormously!" Hockney published a
lithographic portrait of him in 1976. and they
This rather formal study of the French art dealer have continued ever since to meet socially, to

Claude Bernard was made in the same year that share jokes and to talk about life in general. A
Hockney had an exhibition of drawings and prints glimmer of Wilder s wisecracking personality can
in his Paris gallery. In contrast to the many por- be detected not only in the rakish way in which
traits over the years of the artist's British dealer. he sports his hat. but also in the trace of a sly
Kasmin — at their best casual, affectionate and smile that he seems unable to suppress even for
even humorous in tone — this an image of busi-
is the sake of appearing duly serious to posterity.
nesslike severity and aloofness, an avowal of a
correct but detached relationship.
President, Loyola Marymount University James N. Loughran, S.J.

Academic Vice President Albert P. Koppes, O.Carm.

Dean, College of Communications and Fine Arts Warren Sherlock
Director, Laband Art Gallery Ellen Ekedal

Catalogue Designers David Hockney, Charlie Scheips

Catalogue Production Vernon Tokita
Photography Richard Schmidt
 -> 'J

A/ITU r^ 2 £*£!-
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DAVID HOCKNEY
FACES 1966-1984

David Hockney has commanded greater popular acclaim than any other British
artist of this century. Innovative and versatile, he has moved with great facility be-

tween the disciplines of drawing, painting, printmaking, stage design, and photog-
raphy. His portraits reflect a personal and intimate side of his art as their subjects

are almost always friends or family; rarely does he do commissioned portraits.

Among the portraits included in this book are drawings of his mother and father,
of Cecil Beaton, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, Billy Wilder, and many
others. Not content with merely reproducing his drawings, he has transformed
them for this book. Using an office photocopier in his studio, he has enlarged
details of 'his sitters' heads so that they become commanding presences which
demand our attention. Designed by David Hockney, this book represents bold and
imaginative new directions in transforming an artist's work into printed form.

With 71 illustrations

Thames and Hudson

500 Fiftji Aver- le
New Yok, New York
dip united States of America

PPT ISSN n-5DD-2?m 3 M ^ >$!"?. T5