David Hockney facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
David Hockney
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Hockney in 2017
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| Born | 9 July 1937 Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
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Notable work
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| Movement | Pop art |
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David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is a famous English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. He was a key artist in the pop art movement of the 1960s. Many people think he is one of the most important British artists of the last 100 years.
Hockney has lived and worked in different places. He has had homes and studios in Bridlington and London, England. He also lived in California on and off since 1964.
One of his most famous paintings, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from 1972, sold for $90 million (£70 million) in 2018. This made it the most expensive artwork by a living artist ever sold at auction at that time.
Contents
Early Life and Art School
David Hockney was born in Bradford, England. He was the fourth of five children. His father, Kenneth Hockney, chose not to fight in the Second World War because of his beliefs.
David went to Bradford College of Art and then the Royal College of Art in London. He felt very comfortable at art school and loved his work.
At the Royal College of Art, Hockney was part of an important exhibition called Young Contemporaries. This show helped announce the start of British Pop art. Hockney was linked to this movement. However, his early paintings also showed strong feelings, like some works by Francis Bacon.
In 1962, the Royal College of Art said he couldn't graduate unless he completed a specific drawing assignment. Hockney refused, saying his art should be judged only on his paintings. He painted Life Painting for a Diploma as a protest. The college saw his great talent and changed its rules. They let him graduate anyway. After leaving art school, he taught art at several universities, including the University of Iowa and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Hockney's Artistic Journey
Moving to Los Angeles
In 1964, Hockney moved to Los Angeles, California. The bright sunshine and swimming pools there gave him lots of ideas for his art. He started painting a series of swimming pool pictures using bright acrylic paints.
He lived in Los Angeles, London, and Paris during the late 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, he began a close friendship with Gregory Evans. Gregory later moved to the US with Hockney and became his business partner.
Painting the Yorkshire Landscape
In the 1990s, Hockney started spending more time back in Yorkshire, England. A friend encouraged him to paint the local scenery. At first, he painted from memory, remembering places from his childhood. In 1998, he finished his painting of the famous Yorkshire landmark, Garrowby Hill.
After 2003, Hockney began painting the countryside en plein air, which means outdoors. He used both oil paints and watercolours. He even set up a home and studio in Bridlington, a seaside town not far from where he was born.
Hockney started making large paintings from many smaller canvases. Sometimes he used as many as fifty canvases put together. To help him see these huge works, he used digital photos of his daily progress. In 2020, he stayed in Normandy, France, during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to create art there.
Hockney's Artworks and Styles
Hockney loves to try new things in his art. He has worked with painting, drawing, printmaking, watercolours, and photography. He has also used unusual tools like a fax machine, paper pulp, computer programs, and even iPad drawing apps!
His art covers many different subjects. He paints still lifes (pictures of objects), landscapes, and portraits of his friends and dogs. He also designs sets for plays and operas.
Capturing People in Portraits
Hockney has painted portraits throughout his career. From 1968, he painted realistic portraits of friends, people close to him, and family. These paintings were almost life-size and showed their subjects very well.
Hockney often painted the same people many times. These included his family, his assistants, writers he knew, and fashion designers Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark (like in Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1970–71). He has also painted over 300 self-portraits of himself.
From 1999 to 2001, Hockney used an old device called a camera lucida for his drawings. This tool helped him draw more than 200 portraits of friends, family, and himself.
In 2016, the Royal Academy showed a series of his portraits called 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life. Each portrait took about six to seven hours over three days to complete.
Making Prints and Etchings
Hockney started making prints early in his career, even a lithograph Self-Portrait in 1954. In 1965, he created The Hollywood Collection, a series of prints about a Hollywood star's art collection.
He also made many other print series, including A Rake's Progress (1961–63) and Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969).
In 1976–77, Hockney created The Blue Guitar, a set of 20 etchings. These prints were inspired by a poem by Wallace Stevens and also by the famous artist Pablo Picasso.
In 1978, Hockney experimented with a new technique using liquid paper. He painted with the paper itself, making each image a unique mix of printmaking and painting. He created 29 artworks this way, including a series of sunflowers and swimming pools.
Creating Photocollages
In the early 1980s, Hockney began making photo collages. He called them "joiners." He would take many Polaroid photos or regular prints of one subject. Then he would arrange them together to make one big picture.
Because the photos were taken from different angles and at slightly different times, the final artwork looked a bit like Cubism. This style helped Hockney explore how human eyes see things. Some of his joiners were landscapes, like Pearblossom Highway #2. Others were portraits, like My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982.
Hockney discovered this technique by accident. He was working on a painting and took Polaroid photos of a room. When he glued them together, he realized it looked like someone was moving through the room. He stopped painting for a while to focus only on this new photo technique.
However, he later felt that photography had limits. He said, "Photography seems to be rather good at portraiture... But, it can't tell you about space, which is the essence of landscape." He returned to painting because he felt photography couldn't fully capture what he wanted to show.
Using New Technology
Hockney has always been interested in new technology. In 1985, he used a Quantel Paintbox, a computer that let him draw right on the screen.
Since 2009, Hockney has painted hundreds of artworks using the Brushes iPhone and iPad apps. He often sends these digital paintings to his friends. In 2010 and 2011, he drew landscapes of Yosemite National Park on his iPad.
He even used an iPad to design a stained glass window for Westminster Abbey in London. This window, unveiled in 2018, celebrates the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It shows a hawthorn blossom scene set in Yorkshire.
From 2010 to 2014, Hockney made multi-camera movies. He used many cameras (from three to eighteen) to record one scene. He filmed landscapes, jugglers, dancers, and even his own art exhibitions. He also combined hundreds of photos to create "photographic drawings" of his friends. In 2017, he used advanced software to stitch together thousands of photos, creating huge photomurals for exhibitions.
Large Outdoor Landscapes
In 2007, Hockney's biggest painting, Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, was shown at the Royal Academy in London. It is a massive painting, measuring about 15 by 40 feet (4.5 by 12 meters).
This artwork shows a group of trees in Hockney's home county of Yorkshire. He painted it on 50 separate canvases, mostly working outdoors, over five weeks. In 2008, he gave this painting to the Tate in London. He said he wanted to give them something truly good and that he was proud of it. A BBC documentary called David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (2009) showed him working on this painting outdoors.
Designing for the Theatre
Hockney has also designed sets and costumes for plays and operas. His first stage designs were for Ubu Roi in London in 1966. He also designed for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in 1975 and The Magic Flute in 1978.
In 1980, he designed for a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. He designed sets for operas like L'enfant et les sortilèges by Maurice Ravel. A reimagined set from this opera is permanently displayed at the Honolulu Museum of Art. He also designed for Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Puccini's Turandot.
Hockney used special techniques in his studio to build small models of his sets. He also used computers to plan lighting and connect it to the music. In 2017, he received the San Francisco Opera Medal for his work on Turandot. Many of his theatre designs are now part of The David Hockney Foundation.
Art Exhibitions
David Hockney has had over 400 solo exhibitions and been part of over 500 group exhibitions. His first solo show was in 1963 when he was 26. By 1970, the Whitechapel Gallery in London organized a big show of his work.
In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery in London held a huge exhibition of Hockney's portraits. It included 150 paintings, drawings, prints, and photocollages from over five decades. Hockney helped arrange the artworks. This exhibition was one of the gallery's most popular ever.
From January to April 2012, the Royal Academy in London presented A Bigger Picture. This show had more than 150 works, many of which covered entire walls. It focused on landscapes, especially trees and tree tunnels in Yorkshire. The exhibition included oil paintings, watercolours, and drawings made on an iPad. Hockney said, "It's about big things. You can make paintings bigger." Over 600,000 people visited this exhibition in less than three months. The show then traveled to the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and the Ludwig Museum in Germany.
From February to May 2017, David Hockney was shown at the Tate Britain. It became the most-visited exhibition in the gallery's history. The show celebrated Hockney's 80th birthday and included his most famous works from six decades. Critics praised Hockney for continuing to experiment with new technology, like his iPad drawings. This popular exhibition then traveled to Paris and New York.
In 2018, Hockney showed new paintings on hexagonal canvases and huge 3D photographic drawings. He revisited famous landscapes like Garrowby Hill and the Grand Canyon, painting them on hexagonal shapes to explore new ways of seeing.
Personal Life
David Hockney has been open about his personal life. He now lives in Normandy, France. He has used hearing aids since 1979 because he started losing his hearing. As of 2018, he stays fit by swimming every morning and can stand at his easel for many hours.
Hockney has a special ability called synesthesia. This means he connects sounds, colors, and shapes in his mind.
Where to See His Art
Many of Hockney's artworks are displayed in the 1853 Gallery at Salts Mill in Saltaire, near his hometown of Bradford. The David Hockney Foundation also holds a large collection of his works.
His art can be found in many public and private collections around the world, including:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- Tate, U.K.
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
- Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova, Turku, Finland
- Mumok, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
- Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, VA
Awards and Recognition
David Hockney has received many awards for his art.
- In 1967, his painting Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool won the John Moores Painting Prize.
- He was offered a knighthood in 1990 but turned it down.
- In January 2012, he accepted the Order of Merit, a very special honor given to only 24 people at a time for their contributions to arts and sciences.
- He was also made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1997.
- In 2003, he received the Lorenzo de' Medici Lifetime Career Award in Italy.
- In 2011, a poll of British artists named him Britain's most influential artist of all time.
- In 2012, Hockney was chosen by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of the famous Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. This celebrated British cultural figures.
Art Market Success
Hockney's paintings have sold for very high prices.
- In 2006, his painting The Splash sold for £2.6 million. In 2020, it sold again for £23.1 million.
- His huge painting A Bigger Grand Canyon, made of 60 canvases, was bought by the National Gallery of Australia for $4.6 million.
- Beverly Hills Housewife (1966–67) sold for $7.9 million in 2008, setting a new record for his work at the time.
- This record was broken again in 2016 when his landscape Woldgate Woods sold for £9.4 million.
- In 2018, Piscine de Medianoche (Paper Pool 30) sold for $11.74 million. Then, Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica sold for $28.5 million in the same auction.
- On 15 November 2018, David Hockney's 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90.3 million. This broke the record for the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction. He had originally sold this painting for $20,000 in 1972.
In recent years, Hockney's iPad drawings have also become very popular in the art market. Their prices have increased a lot.
The David Hockney Foundation
David Hockney created The David Hockney Foundation in 2008. Its goal is to help people learn about and appreciate visual art and culture. It does this by showing, taking care of, and publishing David Hockney's artworks.
The foundation owns over 8,000 of his works. These include paintings, drawings, watercolours, prints, stage designs, and multi-camera movies. They also have 203 sketchbooks and Hockney's personal photo albums. The foundation lends artworks to museums and exhibitions around the world.
Books by Hockney
In 2016, a very large book called David Hockney: A Bigger Book was published. It cost £1,750. Hockney himself chose the artworks for the book, which covered over 60 years of his career. The book weighed 78 pounds and came with an optional wooden stand. He showed the book at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Images for kids
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Hockney in 2017
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David Hockney's "Prince Charles", Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, Hamilton, Bermuda
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We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961)
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A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy in London, January 2012
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A Bigger Grand Canyon, 1998, National Gallery of Australia
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David Hockney's 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
See also
In Spanish: David Hockney para niños
