DAVID
HOCKNEY
David Hockney
(b. 1937)
California based English artist David Hockney (born in 1937), is considered
one of the
most important artists of the twentieth century and influential to British
Pop Art of the 1960's.
Biography
British painter, draughtsman, printmaker, photographer, and designer.
After a brilliant prize-winning
career as a student at the Royal College of Art, Hockney had achieved
international success by
the time he was in his mid-20s, and has since consolidated his position
as by far the best-known
British artist of his generation. His phenomenal success has been based
not only on the flair, wit,
and versatility of his work, but also on his colorful personality, which
has made him a recognizable
figure even to people not particularly interested in art.
His early paintings gained him a reputation of leading Pop Artist, although
he himself rejected the label.
In the late 1960s he turned to a weightier, more traditionally representational
manner, in which he has
painted some striking portraits. He has spent much of his time in the
USA, and the Californian swimming
pool has been one of his favorite themes. Often his work has a strong
homo-erotic content.
Hockney is a brilliant draughtsman and has been as outstanding as a
graphic artist as he has as a painter,
his work in this field including etched illustrations to Cavafy's Poems
and Six Fairy Tales of the Brothers
Grimm. In the 1970s he came to the fore also as a stage designer, notably
with his set and costume
designs for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress and Mozart's The Magic
Flute produced at Glyndebourne
in 1975 and 1978 respectively. The broader style demanded by stage design
is reflected in his most
recent easel paintings. In the 1980s he has experimented much with photography,
producing, for example,
photographic collages and prints created on photocopiers.
Technically, it is true to say that the Pop movement started with Richard
Hamilton and David Hockney in
England. Hockney's early work made superb use of the popular magazine-style
images on which much of Pop
Art is based. However, when Hockney moved to California in the 1960s,
he responded with such artistic
depth to the sea, sun, sky, young men, and luxury that his art took
on a wholly new, increasingly naturalistic
dimension.
Curriculum Vitae
1937 Born, Yorkshire, England
1953 Regional College of Art, Bradford, England
1959 Painting School of the Royal College, London
Selected Exhibitions
2004 David Hockney, An Intimate Eye, Richard Gray Gallery, New York,
NY
2000 David Hockney - A Print Retrospective, Alan Cristea Gallery, London
2000 Encounters: New Art from Old, National Gallery
1999 Recent Etchings, Alan Cristea Gallery, London
1997 Flowers, Faces and Spaces, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
1996 Drawing Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles,
CA
1996 Drawing Retrospective, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
1995-96 Drawing Retrospective, Royal Academy of Art, London
1989 Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil
1988 David Hockney: A Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Los Angeles, CA
1988 David Hockney: A Retrospective, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, NY
1983 Hockney Paints the Stage, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
1983 Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1980-81 Knoedler/Kasmin Gallery, London
1978 L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, CA
1976 Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1973-75 Retrospective, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris
1970 Retrospective, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1968 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1965 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
1965 Kasmin Gallery, London
1965 Palais de Beaux-Arts, Paris
1964 Solo exhibition, Alan Gallery, New York, NY
1963 First solo exhibition, Kasmin Gallery, London
1961 Young Contemporaries Exhibition
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