 |
 |
David Hockney - A Biography
1937 David Hockney is born in Bradford. 1948-1952 Bradford Grammar School. At the age of eleven he decides to be an artist. 1953 - 57 Studies at Bradford School of Art, graduates with the National Diploma of Design,. The training is traditional, developing observation and realist representation: classes include anatomy, perspective, and life drawing. He produces his first oil paintings and colour lithographs. Hockney encounters abstract painting in 1957 at an Alan Davie exhibition in Wakefield. 1957 - 58 Refusing national service, David Hockney is a conscientious objector in the hospitals of Bradford and Hastings. 1959 Hockney is accepted at the Royal College of Art in London, where he studies with Ron B. Kitaj, Allan Jones, Peter Phillips, Derek Boshier and Patrick Caulfield. His current concerns draw him to the work of Jean Dubuffet and Francis Bacon. 1960 First group show: London Group 1960 at the R. B. A. Galleries in London. Reads the complete works of Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Hockney begins the series of "Vegetarian Propaganda Paintings" (now lost) and that of "Homosexual Propaganda Paintings". "My Royal College paintings were certainly about fantasy, my own fantasy. They didn’t deal at all with what we saw." (Hockney, 1977) 1961 Lacking means to buy canvas, Hockney experiments with engraving. Guinness Award for Engraving, first prize. Features in John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 1961, Walker Art Gallery Liverpool. Along with other RCA students, he decorates the cruise liner Canberra. First trip to the United States — to New York — from July to August. William Lieberman buys to of his etchings for the Museum of Modern art and mediates the sale of others. 1962 David Hockney receives the RCA diploma and the gold medal "for work of outstanding distinction". In 1963, Lord Snowdon photographs him in the notorious gold lamé jacket he wore on the Convocation Day. Hockney enters into an agreement with the art dealer John Kasmin. Travels to Italy during the summer and returns via Munich and Berlin. 1963 He starts painting from life again. The First Marriage is the first two figure composition representing one figure that has a specific identity. The curtain theme becomes crucial in his work. He finishes A Rake’s Progress. A Graphic Tale Comprising Sixteen Etchings. Commissioned by the Sunday Times, Hockney goes to Egypt to make crayon drawings. Reading City of Night by John Rechy, he begins to fantasize about Californian hedonism. Contemporary versions of the Bather theme, Hockney’s first Shower Paintings are inspired by the L. A. homoerotic magazine Physique Pictorial. First Solo exhibition: "David Hockney: Pictures with People In" at Kasmin Gallery, on Bond Street, London. 1964 In January, he arrives in Los Angeles where he rents a small studio in Santa Monica. Man Taking a Shower in Beverly Hills is his first work with acrylic paint. He meets the printer Ken Tyler, the galerist Nicholas Wilder and the writer Christopher Isherwood. From June to July, he teaches at the University of Iowa and paints Iowa and Ordinary Picture. 1965 "In 1965 or 1966, in California I began to paint California as it really appeared to me." (Hockney, 1970) In A Hollywood Collection, a series of lithographs conceived as an "instant art collection" for an imaginary Hollywood star, he explores the themes of the frame and painting within painting, ironically commenting on the value of contemporary art. 1966 Having visited Beirut, David Hockney makes a series of etchings entitled Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy. On this occasion, he works with the printer Maurice Payne who becomes his assistant and permanent collaborator. He designs the set and costume for the production of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry, at the Royal Court Theatre in London with William Gaskill as the artistic director. 1967 Pursuing his interest in the instantaneous, he paints A Bigger Splash and explores the paradox between a flat surface and illusionistic perspective. Through the increasing use of photographs, he approaches photorealism. 1968 First large-scale double portraits: American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman) and Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy. analyses one-point perspective with specific reference to Renaissance masterpieces. 1969 In March, he begins working on a series of etchings Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm. In November, solo exhibition at André Emmerich Gallery in New York. Clement Greenberg declares: "This is not art for a serious gallery." 1970 First retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. He starts to work on the double portrait of Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy and finishes it the following year. "The painting, judged by postcard sales, remains the most popular in the Tate’s permanent collection." (P. Fuller, 1988) As preparatory studies for architecture and then for people, he assembles photographic collages which could be considered his first "Joiners". 1971 The portrait of Sir David Webster is the only official commission, undertaken for Covent Garden in London. 1972 David Hockney executes paintings in memory of his trip to Japan (Mt. Fuji and Flowers). 1973 In spring, he settles on the rue des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then in the Latin quarter in a flat which had belonged to Balthus. His focused interest transfers from painting to drawing and engraving. 1974 Having abandoned it ten years earlier, Hockney recommences to use oil on canvas. Retrospective at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. David Hockney meets Gregory Evans. In October, Hockney returns to Hollywood to conceive the set and costumes of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, for Glyndebourne Opera Festival (produced by John Cox). 1975 In 1754, Hogarth designed the frontispieceof a book by Joshua Kirby, Dr Brook Taylor’s Methods of Perspective Made Easy both in Theory and in Practice. The "mistakes" enumerated in the 18th century treatise are put forward by Hockney as routes to explore in view of renovating pictorial space in his key painting Kerby (After Hogarth) Useful Knowledge. 1976 David Hockney by David Hockney is published with an introduction by Henry Geldzahler. Numerous exhibitions, amongst these :Engraving retrospective at the Louisiana Museum of Copenhagen, participates in Documenta VI, Kassel 1977 Hockney and Kitaj regularly discuss their concern that the contemporary art world is neglecting the figurative tradition and privileging abstraction and conceptual art; they accept to prepare an article, which is published in The New Review. Hockney moves to Pembroke Studios in Kensington. In the autumn, he goes to New York where he works on the sets for The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, produced for Glyndebourne Festival Opera by John Cox. 1978 He carefully studies the last ten volumes of Christian Zervos’ catalogue raisonné of Picasso’s œuvre. His father, Kenneth Hockney, dies. Passing by New York in August, he stays several weeks to explore new printing techniques at Tyler Graphics. This results in 29 Paper Pools, a series using coloured and pressed paper pulp. "The heavily textured surfaces [of these works] were to affect his approach to painting. Large color masses were allowed to establish their own perimeters." (M. Friedman, 1983) 1979 On March 4, an article published in The Observer, entitled "No Joy at the Tate", sparks a public controversy about the Tate Gallery acquisition policy. Hockney denounces the curators’ attitude as being in favour of non-figurative and formalist art. He moves in a house in the Hollywood Hills with Gregory Evans. First drafts for the sets and costumes of a French Triple bill, produced by John Dexter for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, presenting Parade by Eric Satie (1915-17), Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Francis Poulenc (1917), and L’Enfant et les sortilèges by Maurice Ravel (1924). 1980 David Hockney’s hearing declines progressively; he starts to wear two hearing aids, in odd colours. In Los Angeles, he starts to look for ways to describe pictorially the sensation of "moving" through space and the selective memory of what one sees while in movement. 1981 In "A New Spirit in Painting", the Royal Academy of Arts in London assesses the revival of figurative painting and includes four new works by Hockney. In May, Thames & Hudson fund a three-week trip to China for him, Stephen Spender and Gregory Evans to prepare China Diary, to be published in 1982. A new concern with the pictorial expression of temporality is conjured up by seeing Chinese scrolls. David Hockney’s first monograph, written by Marco Livingstone, is published. 1982 Hockney buys the house in the Hollywood Hills, the exterior is painted red and blue, and he covers the swimming pool with blue "French marks". Ian Falconer lives with him for several years. He questions classical perspective, the mechanics of which are reproduced in photography. David Hockney temporarily abandons painting. He pursues his study ofthe human figure through his photographic collages, which occupy him quasi obsessively for two years. "Drawing with a Camera" is the evocative title he gives to the first exhibition of composite polaroids at André Emmerich Gallery in New York. 1983 In Moving Focus Prints, a series of offset lithographs printed by Tyler Graphics, he applies graphically his lessons in photography. 1984 David Hockney paints a number of works which show the influence of Chinese scrolls and photocollages. "Some people have observed that, since about 1980, the human figure is absent from my work. The main reason for that is that I have wanted the viewer to become the figure." (Hockney 1993) 1985 He continues the Moving Focus Prints with Ken Tyler who introduces him to the Mylar technique. The painting A Chair illustrates his fascination with Van Gogh and resumes the theme of absence. It demonstrates the principle of inverse perspective, which had intuitively intrigued him in Kerby in 1975. Its use in Medieval Byzantine mosaic seeks to conquer people spiritually; likewise Hockney endeavours to seduce spectators and reduce the distance between them and the work. He designs the cover and forty-one pages of the French version of Vogue. 1986 Hockney’s recent intense collaborations with Vogue and Ken Tyler stimulate his interest in printing procedures. Home Made Prints are created on three office copying machines that he installs in his Los Angeles studio. In the next few years, his involvement with opera becomes increasingly professional and absorbing. Despite regular criticisms for not cencentrating on one medium, he persists in experimenting with diverse media from photography to new technologies; a rich cross-fertilisation ensues. 1987 Jonathan Silver rehabilitates an old textile mill in Saltaire, near Bradford, and permanently exhibits works lent by David Hockney in the 1853 Gallery. 1988 Major retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, then the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London. Hockney frequently seeks isolation in a small house on Malibu Beach. He paints the ocean. "The waves come right up to my window. Once again I am conscious of a vast space. The house is small, with very cosy rooms and outside is infinity." (Hockney, 1994) 1990 David Hockney imagines "My Wagner Drive", a car trip to the sound of Wagner trough the local landscape he is currently painting in. He travels to Alaska with Henry Geldzahler, with a cheap camera. In September, he works on Turandot by Giacomo Puccini produced for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the San Francisco Opera with Bill Farlow. 1991 In autumn, he begins research for Die Frau ohne Schatten, produced by John Cox for the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in London. 1992 In May, he paints Some Very New Paintings or V. N. Paintings. 1993 That’s the Way I see It is his second autobiographical volume published by Thames & Hudson and edited by Nikos Stangos. 1995 Major retrospective of his drawings at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, then exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He conceives Snail’s Space with Vari-Lites, Painting as Performance. 1996 The exhibition "Johannes Vermeer" he sees in The Hague and tries out his chromatic discoveries immediately in a series of paintings of flowers. 1997 Flowers, Faces and Spaces at Annely Juda Fine Art. "‘Space’ is one of the subjects in the show. And space is illustrated by the use of light and colour." (Hockney, 1997) New suite of etchings with flower and chair motifs, portraits and self-portraits in which Hockney experiments with new techniques with Maurice Payne who moves next door to him in the Hollywood Hills, inducing a period of intense collaboration. As from the end of July, in homage to Jonathan Silver, he begins to paint views of Salts Mill in Saltaire and capture the experience of driving through the Yorkshire landscape. 1998 Hockney assembles 60 canvases to paint A Bigger Grand Canyon, the overall size being determined by dimensions of the final gallery of the Parisian show in preparation. In the summer, having come back from a trip to Europe, he embarks on a new panoramic version, already formed in his mind and paints A Closer Grand Canyon. Beginning with 60 canvases, he adds three rows (totalling 96 canvases) to integrate the sky in December. 1999 The thematic retrospective David Hockney. Espace / paysage at the Centre Georges Pompidou traces his treatment of landscape and space in painting. Seeing the exhibition "Portraits by Ingres: Images of an Epoch" at the National Gallery in London stimulates a passionate investigation. Dated March 29, the first portrait using a camera lucida is of Richard Schmidt. On May 11, his mother, Laura Hockney, dies. During the summer, he publishes a controversial article in the RA Magazine relating his new insight on old Masters’ technique. Lost knowledge or the coming post-photographig age is a lecture he gives in October at the National Gallery of Australia, in Canberra. 2000 Tate Britain in London opens with new display of the collection, "RePresenting Britain 1500-2000", in which a room is dedicated to David Hockney. Biography compiled after Caroline Hancock, "Chronology and Documents", in David Hockney. Exciting Times Are Ahead. Bonn: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundes republik Deutschland, 2001 |
