5 things we’ve discovered about David Hockney
David Hockney says about his old paintings: “many of them seem like old friends to me now”. Witty and brilliant, he is one of the most prolific artists of his generation and one of the most successful and recognisable artists of our time. As he approaches his 80th birthday Tate Britain presents the world’s most extensive retrospective of his work and offers an unprecedented perspective of the his work on painting, drawing, photography and video, including works never displayed in public before.
We’re looking back over lifetime with this exhibition, and I hope, like me, people will enjoy seeing how the roots of my new and recent work can be seen in the developments over the years. — David Hockney
David Hockney can be seen from 9th February to 29th May, in Tate Britain. Then, the exhibition will tour internationally to Paris and New York.
1. He may have synesthesia
David sees synesthetic colours in response to musical stimuli. This does not show up in his painting or photography artwork, but is a common underlying principle in his designs for stage sets for ballet and opera, lightning on the colours he sees while listening to the piece’s music. This cognitive ability to perceive sounds, colors, and/or words through two or more senses simultaneously is the same condition that supposedly led Wassily Kandinsky to paint his vibrant, symphonic abstractions or more recently Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange) who use it to create music compositions via his own scoring techniques, as well as other artists such as Lady Gaga etc.
2. Poetry is one of his influences
As a lover of literature, Hockney’s earliest pieces reveal the influence of poetry on his homoerotic paintings (he took up gay subject matter before almost anyone else). Walt Whitman is a significant source: We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961) has the title line painted over the contours of two figures embracing.
3. Hockney is an avid user of the Brushes iPhone app. He uses it to draw portraits and send them to friends
Hockney began incorporating technology in his work since the 1980s. In 1986, he created his first homemade prints on a photocopier. In the 1990s he started using fax machines and laser printers. From 2009 to date, Hockney has painted hundreds of portraits, still lifes and landscapes using the Brushes app on iPhones and iPads and often sends them to his friends.
4. He has a theory about the secret use of the camera in pre-modern art
The Hockney-Falco Thesis is a speculative collaboration between the artist and physicist Charles M. Falco. Fascinated by the Old Masters, Hockney wrote a book where he argues that optical aids were used to gain the high level of detail found in Renaissance artworks.
5. David appears in a new version of Sir Peter Blake’s most famous artwork — the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover
In 2012, Hockney was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover — to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires.
