David Hockney's career: so much more than outrageously good mood

David Hockney is currently listed on the independent ranking list of Art Facts , which can be automatically evaluated and does not incorporate any personal evaluations of art scientists, etc.

On Hockney's 75th birthday in 2012 he lingered in rank # 36; However, the British painter was celebrated with so many exhibitions of his works that at that time he was also one of the three to five most important artists on earth.

The celebrations for his 80th birthday in 2017 exceeded this again.

The rankings of the very big ones can still change noticeably - if you can find longer 100 artists of a globally working ranking longer, you are certainly one of the world artists who significantly shape the art world. Like David Hockney , who has been found quite far ahead in every ranking of contemporary art since around 1965.

In the first part of this cycle over the world artist, it was shown and justified that David Hockney is not or was not a pop-art painter, even if this style is frequently attached to him. Below is now about the career of David Hockneys - again the reason to tidy up with widespread and just as much shortened representations about the influential artist:

David Hockney did not make a career in America, he had long been famous in art circles when he arrived there. Hockney also not only painted beautiful pictures, but also worked very successfully in various trades in art:

New art, still in ancient England

David Hockney applied to the Royal College of Art in London in 1959 to convert the purely academic training in Bradford into the development of his own style. Hockney found the colorful, free pop art from the USA fascinating like every young free spirit and personally had very good reasons to settle in realms of an ironic but fun-loving social criticism.

The seriousness with which he operated his artistic work, however, did not allow him to drop as willful in the beautiful colorful art world of the cutting-edge US pop art, as some representations seem to convey.

Hockney first had to insert a long old world of Schlenker: Hockney worked as determined until 1962 as it was continuously on his own visual language; He wanted to find or invent a completely new expression between abstraction and figurative representation.

He already had the first conflicts with the picture in Bradford, but not yet given up during the time. At the RCA, he now only tried to see and emphasize the picture as an area. This striking characteristic Hockneys used to work on the Royal College of Art (Hello, Sandra Blow, see Hockney Part 1) was a very conscious image strategy that should be a decisive step for the artist.

Studying in the center of the London cultural and art scene, the work and discussion with the also fellow students who are also interested in new ways and expressions offered Hockney enough opportunities to deal with the various art movements of his time and to develop their own visual language in this learning process.

The first approach to abstraction was expressive cardboard paintings in a abstract manner like "Growing Discontent" (growing dissatisfaction, 1959, not available), in which the title on cranks of a dislocation of a only gestured painting spell à la Alan Davie and Jackson Pollock .

Hockney revealed these abstract paintings again after a few months because he understood that for him the way to modernity could not consist of attracting a new stylistic jacket called pop art instead of the tedious restriction by the rigid rules of the traditional "royal art".

Hockney wanted more: a personal voice; an elegant, new compromise between abstraction and objectivity, which was not found in the trend -determining art of the trendy Americans. That is why Hockney preferred to resort to suggestions by European artists, among whom many have tried to convey many time between abstraction and figuration.

During his visits to the exhibition in London, he discovered Francis Bacon for himself (Hello, Sandra Blow), whose figure presentation became the first important source of inspiration.

Furthermore, Hockney found only seemingly primitive "art brood" Jean Dubuffets , which only made him think and then brought forward. Dubuffet was the first artist to take graffiti as a model and also documented this art variant at that time. To do this, he was suggested by the first graffiti photographer Brassaï , who had already collected pictures of the Wall in the 1930s.

The idea brought Dubuffet resounding success, in the documenta period of Dubuffets (three appearances in a row: 1959, 1964, 1968), his figure table ( "vertu virtual" ; "Hopes and options" ), which were framed by ancient letters or composed of lively letters, could really be seen as "anarchy in their most beautiful form" where modern art could be found.

For Hockney very crucial impulses, he felt very connected by Dubuffet's representations between children's art and old Egyptian high culture and saw in this "anonymous style" ("Davis Hockney" by David Hockney 1976, p. 67) an elementary model for his work at the time at Royal College.

Hockney should never lose what a student from Seoul (emphasized by herself) in her philosophy dissertation at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich about the early work of David Hockney's "European emotional or figure-hugging tendency" .

Perhaps it was precisely this insistence on the European artistic traditions; Hockney hesitate how British colleagues immediately use the innovative American styles to free themselves from Europe's art tradition that led to an oeuvre "global art" that was able to inspire people on all continents.

Good young art even has opportunities in old England

Towards the end of his studies at the Royal College of Art, Hockney developed his first own expression, and with this he becomes famous in the home country very early and very quickly:

In 1960 the talented Mister Hockney was invited to the annual exhibition of the "London Group" . The London Group is a London artist association to this day, which was founded in 1913 as an avant -garde opposition to the conservative Royal Academy of Arts; Their declared goal is "promoting public consciousness for contemporary visual art through annual exhibitions".

The London Royal Academy of Arts is the art institution in Great Britain, which has since been founded by George III. In the royal mandate of the promotion of painting, sculpture and architecture. George III. Great Britain from 1760 to 1820, from 1765 he is said to have shown the first signs of mental illness that overshadowed the second half of his term; The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1768 ...

The honorable royal academy was probably not blessed with the most refreshing spirit for a long time before Brexit times; It was simply unthinkable that young art was shown in one of the celebrated summer exhibitions of young art by (also gay gays) college students such as David Hockney.

How far you as a RA (Royal Academician) lag around behind your time can be z. B. read that David Hockney himself was only elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1991 - he was 54 and famous as an artist for 30 years.

report of the "Guardian" is also quite enlightening Grayson Perry, who was no longer baptized at the age of 58, saved the 2018 summer exhibition (250th birthday of the academy) from her himself according to the Guardian journalist, "stupid himself" by making a wild collecting sector from Trash art to the surprised British art establishment.

The London Group, on the other hand, delights in its exhibitions then as now by the diversity of style, which does not notice the entirety of the young artists who have not noticed by the Royal Academy of Arts or brings rejected young artists into the annual exhibition.

David Hockney soon exhibited, and this Young Contemporaries exhibition of 1961 in the RBA Galleries London became famous by making Royal College students Patrick Caulfield , Derek Boshier , Hockney , RB Kitaj and Peter Phillips famous.

"Young Contemporaries" , "New Contemporaries" also a British organization that wants to support emerging artists at the beginning of their career. The foundation was initiated by David Hockney's teacher Carel Weight:

In 1949 he had the idea of ​​using the hardly used gallery of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA, another British artist association, which was founded in 1823 as a counterweight to the sleepy Royal Academy) in the London Suffolk Street to issue student work .

No sooner said than done, and the founders also agreed to select the “young contemporaries” in such an impartial and democratic procedure that it can almost be called unbritic: the artist advertises anonymously with a work of art; The jurors do not experience the school, age and nationality of the participant throughout the selection process.

In the decade since the foundation of the Young Contemporaries, the annual exhibition had already earned the call to present the most exciting new art of time. At the beginning of the 1960s, the Young Contemporaries exhibition for the connoisseurs of contemporary art had become a mandatory date, the spectacle could not be missed as possible with sense of modern art.

The exhibition of 1961 was a direct hit among the artists, especially for the sniffer dogs, they grabbed the new British pop art eagerly and, above all, after David Hockney's early works. The exciting new discoveries were discussed and passed on, David Hockney was slowly becoming the subject of talks in the avant -garde art scene.

A gallery owner finds his artist

At this 1961 Young Contemporaries exhibition, John Kasmin , a young wilder from London's East End, was also deployed by the police (as Bohemian) from New Zealand and has been working in London galleries since his return.

"Doll Boy" at the Young Contemporary Show in 1961 , was fascinated and wanted it. At that time, Kasmin worked for the Marlborough Gallery New London. Kasmin invited Hockney to tea after working, liked him and wanted the picture so much that he was ready to lie with his boss and Marlborough Fine Art co-founder Harry Fischer.

In any case, Kasmin was not allowed to select the gallery according to his own taste/instinct, so he announced (to disappoint the Marlborough founder who had already noticed his potential) and also took the most important customers in the gallery.

This Sheridan Duffer was called Sheridan Frederick HAMALTON-TEMPLE-BLACKWOOD 5TH Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and had a lot of money. Duffer provided the money for the foundation of the Kasmin Gallery, which moved into unusually large, white bare business premises in the London New Bond Street and in 1963 organized David Hockney's first solo exhibition.

Hockney immortalized Kasmin in 1963 in the painting "Play Within a Play" ( curiator.com/art/david-hockney/play---within-a-play ) "as a prisoner between life and art" , so it was probably clear to him at the time what kind of luck a gallery owner like John Kasmin who believed in art and not just wanted to sell things.

The reaction to Hockney's first solo appearance in the Kasmin Gallery London was great, David Hockney became a star at the venerable Royal College of Art. The young man, which was previously described in the "Royal Surroundings", now afforded the first appeals of rebellion (but is still being obvious, delightful and by no means described):

In the middle of all this early fame, Hockney's college degree was, and he probably did not make it entirely- according to John Kasmin, he refused to write an essay or the like, therefore did not get the usual gold medal and instead bought a gold lamé jacket.

Hockney was probably the “Drawing Prize” more important anyway, which he won in the final year. He was endowed with £ 100, which Hockney spent on a trip to New York, Berlin and Egypt without hesitation to collect suggestions for illustrations.

Hockney is said to have come back from this trip more confidently, more confident and extravagant. Like many of his artists' colleagues, the then social climate in the United Kingdom was not necessarily likeable: According to the penal code, homosexuals were still under the threat of lifelong imprisonment, were only not pursued since the "Wolfenden Report" in 1957.

According to Kasmin, Kitaj, Blow and others who had already been around in the world, there was "out there" more exciting art as wallpaper pictures by John Minton, mosaic landscapes by Julian Trevelyan and the "terrible little drawings" ( quote Kasmin) by Lucian Freud.

In general, for Hockney the weather was too bad, the country too nationalist (hello Brexit), many people too narrow -minded and misplair.

Get out of the narrow

In every "proud nation with glorious history", the seduction lurks to treat foreign, different ways. The closer of the horizon, the more it is perceived as different; Free artists always when their work deviates from the mainstream taste, people with unusual sexual orientation anyway.

Modern, civilized societies combat such tendencies; Unbound free thinkers always tend to join the nations in which this struggle is most successful at the time - for most young artists, most young artists showed great red arrows in the direction of America.

Five of the six fellow students, who became known together with Hockney in the Young Contemporaries exhibition in 1961, landed more or less quickly in the USA after completing the Royal College of Art, only two of them later returned to England permanently:

Ridley Scott received a one -year travel grant in the United States in 1963 and worked for two years at Time Life, Inc. with documentaries Richard Leacock and Da Pennebaker. In 1965 he returned to England to get into the training program for directors through a scene designer training at the BBC.

In 1968 he left the BBC to found the Ridley Scott Associates, to make it one of the most successful advertising houses in Europe and to start his well-known career as a director from there.

All Jones and Peter Phillips lived in New York from 1964 to 1966 and traveled to the United States together. Jones moved to Germany (teaching orders at art universities in Hamburg and Berlin, Documenta III 1964, Documenta 4 1968 Kassel) and then back home. Peter Phillips remained internationally, with teaching orders in Birmingham and Hamburg, exhibitions all over the world and travel to Africa and Australia, he lives in Mallorca today.

Derek Boshier went to India as a scholarship holder of the Indian government after graduation, then made a career in England and taught at the Central School of Art and Design in London to finally land in Los Angeles.

, the only American RB Kitaj -born as a drawing teacher at the London Ealing School of Art, Camberwell School of Art and Slade School of Fine Art, took part in the Documenta III in Kassel and the Biennale in Venice in 1964 and only returned at the Marlborough-Gallery in NEW York back to the USA after nine years after nine years.

Hockney found the jump in February 1964: During his first great excursion into the world, he met Henry's money payers, the then custody of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who was known for his commitment to young artists and encouraged Hockney to move to Los Angeles.

There were only waiting for talents like Hockney: In the same year, Hockney completed his very successful first US individual exhibition in the New York Alan Gallery , in the summer of 1964 he received a teaching position at the University of Iowa.

Hockney adopted home in the United States, however, becomes Los Angeles. He was enthusiastic about the sunny California ; No wonder if you briefly see where David Hockney had lived so far:

Hockney's hometown Bradford was at an ecological and architectural low in the 1950/60 years, after an even more inglorious past: Bradford had risen in the 19th century from a rural market town with a few thousand inhabitants to the industrial city with over 50 coal mining works and the "wool capital of the world".

The cityscape offered inadequate workers' dwellings, military barracks and textile factories, the 200 factory chimneys constantly poured out black, sulfur -containing smoke. Around 1850, Bradford was the dirtiest city of England with cholera and typhoid as a permanent guest, the average life expectancy of the residents was eighteen years.

Bradford was hardly damaged in the Second World War, but restructuring and conversion by authorities full of aesthetic duds might destroy the historical face of Bradford even more thoroughly.

When David Hockney grew up there, Bradford consisted of ugly buildings and chaotic streets full of unsecured construction sites and uniform rent barracks with soccer fields without a trail green in between; The houses were black brown and ugly and the air was still gray.

John Kasmin visited him once or twice a year in the USA; A photo of both from 1965 was taken in the United States when they looked at an exhibition of the new London painting scene in the Walker Art Center Minneapolis with artists from England.

Kasmin grew up in the Whitechapel district of London compared to Bradford in a comparatively heavenly conditions and has filled up “pure landscape” in New Zealand for six years from the age of 17. Against this background, it is understandable that the gallery owner remembers with a light mockery of how hockney was in love with every detail of the casual California way of life, even to Disneyland, Hockney would have looped him ...

From Hockney's perspective, on the other hand, California is the most logical choice of the world: free, inspiring (pop) kind instead of royal restriction, sun instead of drizzle, further horizon instead of close street gorge, swimming pools in the green instead of gravel -covered sports fields, cheerful and built boys (with free upper body) instead of serious masculinity in tie and collar ... Excessive abundance of the latest technical gadgets called Disneyland fascinates an artist of modernity, a gallery owner working in this area should actually be surprised as the very last.

First flower under California sun

The time of his departure into freedom was also the time when David Hockney finds the first own visual language : clear, cool forms, factual manner, focus on processing the new experiences, which are carefully secured with the equally new polaroid camera.

For Hockney, the right remedy for this phase is the only invented acrylic paint, the "Shower Pictures" , "Swimming Pool images" and "Domestic Scenes", , not only impress with their colors and expressiveness, but also by appropriation of the latest developments that the time and at that time.

The latest technical developments implemented in art, in an individual language with great colors and clear motifs, without incomprehensible academic, intellectual or psychological engagements and messages- this combination touched and enchanted many lovers of modern art and quickly also people who simply looked for beautiful art and/or trendy art with high use and decoration value.

Hockney went right in California; And that was the start of an artist life, the intensity of which can cause dizziness with the viewer:

Between 1965 and 1967, Hockney received and fulfilled teaching orders at the University of Colorado in Boulder and at the University of California, Los Angeles and Berkeley, San Francisco.

In 1966 Hockneys made his first stage design for the London Royal Court Theater and Alfred Jarry's surrealistic piece "UBU ROI", starting with numerous stage designs. Today David Hockney is "only" a term as a painter, but he was working as a stage designer, photographer and graphic artist that these arts rightly claim him.

In 1968 Hockney spent the summer at home in England and traveled to Paris, southern France, Cornwall and Northern Ireland with friends. In autumn he accompanied the still quite fresh love of his life, the California art photographer Peter Schlesinger, to London, where he wants to enroll at the Slade School of Art.

Then we continue to St. Tropez, where he visited "Le Nid Du Duc" and extensively photographed - the dreamlike home of director, screenwriter, producer "Tony" Richardson (1964 4 Oscars for "Tom Jones", Hotel New Hampshire, Phantom of Opera ff.) Should play a role in his art.

"By the way" he painted a few of his most famous pictures ( Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy ; American Collectors Fred and Marcia Weisman ) and took part in Documenta 4 in Kassel.

Marathon career with endless intermediate lines

At this pace it went on: in 1969 Hockney accepted a visiting professorship at the Hamburg art college; He always goes on longer trips that are connected to work and experiments and longer stays in the respective corner of the world.

So he spends z. B. 1975 for a long time in Paris; Together with his parents, who are also comprehensively portrayed. Also in 1975, Hockney lets the research on the etching cycle carried out at the beginning of the 1960s around William Hogarth's "Werdeglang of a deserting" into a stage design for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in East Sussex, on which Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" is added.

There are always completely new art ideas, from 1976 z. B. Photo collage work, each of which is composed of many polaroid images. "Twenty Photographic Pictures" and the composition composed of 63 Polaroids around the sisters and Hermiane Cornwall-Jones are well received at the time, and they are also a single-handedly against the fashionable trends of the time.

Today, these works are often presented as an expression of a "cubist phase" of Hockneys and a late examination of Cubism and Picasso's work , but this argument started Hockney on the Royal College of Art.

In 1977 Hockney was seen on Documenta 6, 1978 at the 38th Biennale of Venice, 1979 at the 3rd Biennale of Sydney; In 1978 Hockney designed the stage design for Mozart's "Magic Flute" for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in East Sussex.

In 1980 Hockney took over the design of the stage sets and costumes for a triple homage to the French art of the Picasso era at the Metropolitan Opera House. The opulent work entitled Parade consisted of the "Parade" works, the ballet with music by Erik Satie, the opera "Les Mamelles de Tirésias" with libretto by Guillaume Apollinaire and music by Francis Poulenc and the opera "L'Enfant et les Sortilges" with libretto from Colette and Music Ravel. In 1981 there was another triple set of stage sets for the Metropolitan Opera: Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps", "Le Rossignol" and "Oedipus Rex".

From 1982, new polaroid collages, even more faceted (even more cubist?), Comed a game with a wide variety of formats and composition or regulatory principles.

In 1983 Hockney worked for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera and the Royal Opera House in London and manufactures stage designs for the Eye and Ear Theater in New York. In the same year, he also completely redesigned the stage design for the opera "L'Enfant et Les Sortilèges" for the exhibition "Hockney Paints The Stage", the work is still being admired in a permanent installation in the Honolulu Museum of Art today.

In 1985 Hockney was on the XIII Biennale of Paris, 1986 on the paper type (1st International Biennale of Paper Art in Düren, Westphalia), certainly again with new experiments; In 1987 he designed the stage design for Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan and Isolde" on behalf of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

As early as the mid -1980s, Hockney had recovered more into painting, this time, especially under the employment of Henri Matisse (and Pablo Picasso, again and again).

Soon a few technical innovations were ready for processing, from the end of the 1980s, Hockney experimented with the field of pressure, color copies, fax devices-four-color copy prints, fax drawings and abstract computer graphics are created, the new work complex of the " Home Made Prints" .

In 1989 David Hockney showed works on the 20th Biennale of Sao Paulo Brazil and is awarded the Japanese "Praemium Imperial" . It is the first time that this "Nobel Prize of the Arts" is awarded, Hockney shares the award in painting with Willem de Kooning (1st winner of the other divisions: Skulptur Umberto Mastroianni; Architecture Ieoh Ming Pei; Music Pierre Boulez; Theater/Film Marcel Carné).

From 1991, Hockney again designed stage sets, for Puccini's "Turandot" at Chicago Lyric Opera and for Richard Strauss' "Frau without Shadow" in 1992 at the Royal Opera House in London; He was also included in 1991 by the members of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

In 1994 Hockney designed in Mexico City costumes and stage sets for twelve opera arias as part of Placido Domingo's television program OperaLia. Again, he uses the latest technical developments, builds complex models in a moving proscenium of 1.8 mx 1.2 m in a scale of 1: 8 using a computer-aided setup, with which he was able to program light settings at will and synchronize them with the soundtrack of the music.

In 1995 Hockney took part in Venice's 46th Biennale; In 1997 he received the British Order of the Companions of Honor (Order of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, who has honored outstanding services in various divisions since 1917) and is included in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2004 he was also seen at the Liverpool Biennale and the Whitney Biennale New York City.

In 2006, after thorough studies of the methods of the old masters, his book "Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters" came out; In 2012 Hockney designed a large picture of 176 square meters for the Vienna State Opera, which in the 2012/2013 season is a highlight of the exhibition series "Eiserner Curtain" as part of the "Museum in Progress".

In 2012 Hockney received the Order of Merit from the Queen (a British order for outstanding military, scientific, artistic and literary achievements) - which he also assumes that he had rejected the knighthood by the Queen in 1990 (see bbc.com ); He also takes part in the IV Biennale of contemporary art in Madrid; As in 2015 (at the age of 78) at the 5th Biennale of contemporary art of Thessaloniki ...

In 2017 David Hockney 80, which was celebrated with a great retrospective in the Tate Britain, London ( Tate.org.uk/whats-on/ ). The San Francisco opera restored and revived the Hockney stage design for Turandot in 2017, Hockney was awarded the San Francisco Opera Medal.

That was not even the approach of a biography, just a quick ride through a few stations from Hockney's life. In addition to all these trips, research, teaching and experiments, David Hockney has created art above all; Enough art to over 306 solo exhibitions and almost 900 group exhibitions ... There are probably no statistics about it yet, but many artists have certainly not yet cracked the brand of 1000 exhibitions.

The third part of this cycle is about well-known image art David Hockneys-not only, because world artists like David Hockney give the world many other suggestions ...

Here is a selection of his works on Pinterest:

(To display the Pinterest Board you must have approved the cookies)