Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Ii Figures) is one of David Hockney's well-nigh renowned paintings, which combines two of his about common motifs: the male figure and the swimming puddle. In this article, Singulart discusses the story behind this masterpiece and its identify in the context of Hockney'due south life and career.

Who is David Hockney?

Hockney circa 2017. CREDIT: AFP
Hockney circa 2017. CREDIT: AFP

Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1937, Hockney attended the Purple Higher of Art in London from 1959 to 1962, where his boundary-pushing arroyo to the curriculum saw his talent recognized. He quickly rose to success every bit a pioneer of British Popular Fine art. In 1964 he moved to Los Angeles, which he described as the "promised land", a identify where he "flowered" and subsequently painted works such equally A Bigger Splash which would come up to define his style and British Popular Art. Information technology is through his iconic, highly saturated acrylic paintings that he captured the essence of loftier living in California in the '60s. From here, Hockney's oeuvre has gone on to span photography, landscape painting and experiments with new technology. Today, alongside Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, he is ane of the richest living artists.

The story behind Portrait of an Creative person (Puddle with Two Figures)

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is one of David Hockney'due south well-nigh famous works and in Nov 2018 it sold for $ninety.3 million, at the time the highest price ever paid for a work by a living creative person. The large scale (ii.1m x 3m) acrylic on canvas painting depicts ii male person figures, one underwater and the other standing fully-dressed beside the swimming pool looking down on the swimming figure. Confronting the backdrop of luscious green hills and trees which disappear into the hazy blue heaven cuts a shimmering blue swimming pool. Hockney employs his characteristically saturated colours and simplified, flattened shapes to conjure up this iconic image.

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972
David Hockney, Portrait of an Creative person (Puddle with Ii Figures), 1972

The composition explores two of the major themes of Hockney'southward work from the 1960'due south and 1970'south: the male person figure and pond pools. The idea for the composition was inspired by the take chances juxtaposition of two photos on Hockney'southward studio floor, one of a effigy underwater and the other of a man looking down at the ground. Hockney stated: "The idea of painting two figures in different styles appealed so much that I began painting immediately." Nevertheless the composition proved more complex than expected and his first attempt was discarded before he decided to return to it in April 1972, four weeks before the opening of an exhibition of his work in New York. He traveled to a villa near Saint Tropez to stage the composition and have photographs with a friend and his banana before returning to his London studio and photographing further studies with his sometime lover, Peter Schlesinger, wearing a pink jacket in Kensington Gardens. He then painted for eighteen hours a day over two weeks to complete the painting before the exhibition.

The inclusion of his former lover Peter Schlesinger in the limerick, adds a layer of personal emotion to Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), making it all the more powerful. As he looks down at the male effigy in the pool, a figure other than Hockney, we sense the painter's desire, melancholy and heartbreak set into the stillness of the sun-drenched setting.

David Hockney'south swimming pools

The motif of the swimming pool characterizes Hockney's early works from the sixty'southward and 70's and was something he came across by adventure. When he get-go arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1960's, he was struck by the sheer number of swimming pools in the urban center. In contrast to England where they are considered a luxury, in Los Angeles they were commonplace. They also presented Hockney with an interesting formal challenge, that of representing water and in item the surface of the water, which constantly changes and avoids description. In Portrait of an Artist (Puddle with Ii Figures) he depicts the movement of the h2o'due south surface, caused by the swimmers movements, with wavy white lines cutting through the blue and patchwork shadows. He also captures the distorting effect of the water on the swimmer'south body, which contrasts sharply with the clarity of the figure in pinkish above.

Run into similar artwork in Singulart's Inspired by David Hockney collection.