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David Hockney RIP

SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
edited June 12 in All Saints
I think the announcement of David Hockney's death merits its own thread.

I remember the first time I saw Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy I felt it really captured the time and place. Years later I saw it again and it still summed up being a teenager who hung out in that bit of London, not that I moved in such exulted circles.

Comments

  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Swimming pools and showers, how he saw water in electric motion.
  • quetzalcoatlquetzalcoatl Shipmate
    One of the greats, and a shock to hear of his death. I love his late pieces full of trees, often in Yorks.
  • A Feminine ForceA Feminine Force Shipmate
    Weird I was thinking about him only three days ago, how I really enjoyed his studies using optical devices like the camera obscura and his photographic series that explored binocular vision.

    RIP to the master. Some really great art, never overhyped.

    AFF
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    I saw an exhibition of his work a couple of years ago at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, alongside complementary classical paintings. He had such a beautiful use of colour and perspective.
    https://www.thecambridgecritique.com/home/2022/3/16/david-hockney-at-the-fitzwilliam-museum
  • sionisaissionisais Shipmate
    Hockney really used perspective. At times it doesn’t look absolutely correct (to me at any rate) but the painting comes alive because of it.
    Very few artists can do that, even the good ones.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    It must say something that, while I have no interest in, and arguably an aversion to, southern California(*), I found A Bigger Splash an impressive enough work that I bought a print of it and posted it up in my bedroom for a few years.

    (*) I can't really think of a nice way to say it, but, unlike when I watch a film set in, say, New York, watching a film set in LA never makes me think "Gee, it would be interesting to live there." Maybe connected to my general dislike of warm places. I do like Joan Didion, though she's more about California generally.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Heavenlyannie wrote: »
    I saw an exhibition of his work a couple of years ago at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, alongside complementary classical paintings. He had such a beautiful use of colour and perspective.
    https://www.thecambridgecritique.com/home/2022/3/16/david-hockney-at-the-fitzwilliam-museum
    Yes, it is really sad that he has died. I too saw that exhibition and also, some years ago went to the Hockney Gallery at Saltaire. A great painter and a man with a striking command of colour.

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    The NY Times has a decent piece on Hockney and Los Angeles - gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/13/arts/design/david-hockney-los-angeles-pool-paintings.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qFA.MnH2.YuTJY9cqk55I&smid=url-share
  • AravisAravis Shipmate
    My parents in law lived in Bingley, which is within walking distance of Saltaire, so I’ve seen Hockney’s paintings at Salts Mill many times (and also managed to catch “A Year in Normandie” while it was there, long before it was exhibited in London).

    David Hockney was three years above my father in law John at Bradford Grammar. I mentioned this to a friend before we dropped in to visit John a couple of years ago.
    Me: We went to Salts Mill earlier, John. I was telling P that you were at school with him.
    P: That’s amazing. What was he like?
    John: He was always in trouble. Never finished his work. And he was very untidy.
    [slight pause while we wait for John to say “but of course he was a genius”. He doesn’t.]
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