The Flickr Drawingfromlife Image Generatr

Crayon on paper

The Artist’s Mother
Laura Hockney was supportive of her son’s desire to be an artist and remained a loyal and patient model, who would always sit still for him. His early Bradford drawings capture the world around him and her image reappears frequently in the sketchbooks Hockney has always used as a visual diary. The pages are filled with scenes of his family, and owe something to the intimate, domestic narratives of the French artists Edouard Vuillard (1868– 1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947).*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Crayon on paper

The Artist’s Mother
Laura Hockney was supportive of her son’s desire to be an artist and remained a loyal and patient model, who would always sit still for him. His early Bradford drawings capture the world around him and her image reappears frequently in the sketchbooks Hockney has always used as a visual diary. The pages are filled with scenes of his family, and owe something to the intimate, domestic narratives of the French artists Edouard Vuillard (1868– 1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947).*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Maurice with Flowers, 1976
Lithograph

Maurice
Master printer, Maurice Payne’s lifelong friendship with the artist began in London in the mid-1960s, when they worked together on the etching suite, Illustrations from Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1967). For a time, Maurice worked as his assistant on significant print projects including Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969) and The Man with the Blue Guitar (1976-77).
In 1998, after a period of 20 years, they collaborated again when Maurice set up a print studio in Los Angeles. To encourage the artist, he would take the ready-prepared etching plates up to Hockney’s house in the Hollywood Hills and then take them back down the hill to print on a press he set up in West Hollywood. Working from life Hockney drew still lifes and portraits of his friends including his loyal dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie. At the time Hockney was working on monumental landscapes of the American West in his studio while making these intimate portraits in the domestic setting of his home.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Pencil and gouache on paper using a camera lucida

Exploring the Landscape of the Face
Gregory Evans and Hockney began an intimate relationship in Paris in 1974, when both lived on the left bank of the Seine. A consistent model for 50 years, assistant, studio manager and curator, the portraits tell the story of the ebb and flow of their time spent together.
In 1999 Hockney adopted another tool to capture the geography of the face. This new journey began when he saw an exhibition of portraits by the French artist, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, at the National Gallery. After studying the drawings he became convinced that Ingres had made his portraits using a camera lucida; a tiny prism suspended on the end of a flexible metal rod. Using this instrument Hockney was able to make quick notations in order to fix the position of the eyes, nose and mouth of his sitters. The tool allowed him to capture a quick likeness of those unfamiliar to him. That year he made 250 individual portrait drawings, all executed with pencil, and sometimes enhanced with white crayon and watercolour on fine, grey paper. The portraits of his close friends, whose faces were already imprinted on his mind, were the most sensitive.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Lithograph

Maurice
Master printer, Maurice Payne’s lifelong friendship with the artist began in London in the mid-1960s, when they worked together on the etching suite, Illustrations from Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1967). For a time, Maurice worked as his assistant on significant print projects including Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969) and The Man with the Blue Guitar (1976-77).
In 1998, after a period of 20 years, they collaborated again when Maurice set up a print studio in Los Angeles. To encourage the artist, he would take the ready-prepared etching plates up to Hockney’s house in the Hollywood Hills and then take them back down the hill to print on a press he set up in West Hollywood. Working from life Hockney drew still lifes and portraits of his friends including his loyal dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie. At the time Hockney was working on monumental landscapes of the American West in his studio while making these intimate portraits in the domestic setting of his home.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Crayon on paper

Self-portraits from the 1980s to the Millennium
In the autumn of 1983, almost every day for two months, Hockney challenged himself to produce a self-portrait in charcoal. This period of intense self-reflection was, in part, a reaction to the untimely deaths of many of his friends due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The honesty and vulnerability exposed in these drawings is a far cry from the confident self-portraits of thirty years earlier. Like the pages of a diary, these works record the daily changes in the artist’s moods and emotions.
In 1999, alongside his camera lucida drawings he made a series of self-portraits, for which he could not use this optical tool. These playful and vulnerable drawings in which he displays different facial expressions, were influenced by Rembrandt’s self-portrait etchings. In others, he adopted the classical side profile and half-length pose found in self-portraiture throughout art history.
In 2002 Hockney turned to watercolour, a medium he hadn’t explored since the 1960s. This new way of working freed up his approach; allowing him to draw quickly and directly onto paper. Hockney described the watercolour series as ‘portraits for the new millennium’, convinced that, despite his experimentation with the camera lucida, the human eye, the hand and the heart were the best tools for capturing the individuality of his sitters.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Pencil and coloured pencil on paper using a camera lucida

Celia
Textile designer, Celia Birtwell, has been a dear friend and close confidante to David Hockney since the 1960s. With their northern roots and shared sense of humour, they found they had much in common from their first meeting and together they were at the heart of bohemian London. The artist has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face, and she remains to this day, one of his favourite models.
Although often dubbed Hockney’s ‘muse’, their relationship is much more than that. They have always admired each other’s work and her sittings for him have been collaborations, as well as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. In his portraits of Celia, the artist has always paid close attention to her distinctive and romantic fabric designs and some of Celia’s own work is inspired by the artist.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Charcoal on paper

Exploring the Landscape of the Face
Gregory Evans and Hockney began an intimate relationship in Paris in 1974, when both lived on the left bank of the Seine. A consistent model for 50 years, assistant, studio manager and curator, the portraits tell the story of the ebb and flow of their time spent together.
In 1999 Hockney adopted another tool to capture the geography of the face. This new journey began when he saw an exhibition of portraits by the French artist, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, at the National Gallery. After studying the drawings he became convinced that Ingres had made his portraits using a camera lucida; a tiny prism suspended on the end of a flexible metal rod. Using this instrument Hockney was able to make quick notations in order to fix the position of the eyes, nose and mouth of his sitters. The tool allowed him to capture a quick likeness of those unfamiliar to him. That year he made 250 individual portrait drawings, all executed with pencil, and sometimes enhanced with white crayon and watercolour on fine, grey paper. The portraits of his close friends, whose faces were already imprinted on his mind, were the most sensitive.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Maurice with Flowers, 1976
Lithograph

Maurice
Master printer, Maurice Payne’s lifelong friendship with the artist began in London in the mid-1960s, when they worked together on the etching suite, Illustrations from Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1967). For a time, Maurice worked as his assistant on significant print projects including Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969) and The Man with the Blue Guitar (1976-77).
In 1998, after a period of 20 years, they collaborated again when Maurice set up a print studio in Los Angeles. To encourage the artist, he would take the ready-prepared etching plates up to Hockney’s house in the Hollywood Hills and then take them back down the hill to print on a press he set up in West Hollywood. Working from life Hockney drew still lifes and portraits of his friends including his loyal dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie. At the time Hockney was working on monumental landscapes of the American West in his studio while making these intimate portraits in the domestic setting of his home.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Lithograph

Celia
Textile designer, Celia Birtwell, has been a dear friend and close confidante to David Hockney since the 1960s. With their northern roots and shared sense of humour, they found they had much in common from their first meeting and together they were at the heart of bohemian London. The artist has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face, and she remains to this day, one of his favourite models.
Although often dubbed Hockney’s ‘muse’, their relationship is much more than that. They have always admired each other’s work and her sittings for him have been collaborations, as well as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. In his portraits of Celia, the artist has always paid close attention to her distinctive and romantic fabric designs and some of Celia’s own work is inspired by the artist.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Home-made print on two sheets of paper

In 1986, while working on designs for a production of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, Hockney began experimenting with a state-of-the-art colour laser photocopier to produce what he described as ‘home-made prints’. Using the copier to replicate the traditional printmaking process he repeatedly fed the same sheet of paper through the machine until each colour of the drawing had been printed. Here, he placed his shirt directly onto the glass plate of the copier.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Pencil and coloured pencil on paper using a camera lucida

Celia
Textile designer, Celia Birtwell, has been a dear friend and close confidante to David Hockney since the 1960s. With their northern roots and shared sense of humour, they found they had much in common from their first meeting and together they were at the heart of bohemian London. The artist has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face, and she remains to this day, one of his favourite models.
Although often dubbed Hockney’s ‘muse’, their relationship is much more than that. They have always admired each other’s work and her sittings for him have been collaborations, as well as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. In his portraits of Celia, the artist has always paid close attention to her distinctive and romantic fabric designs and some of Celia’s own work is inspired by the artist.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Lithograph

This lithograph is part of a series created in Los Angeles at Gemini G.E.L artist’s workshop and publisher. The portraits capture Celia in various poses and moods: Celia Musing, Celia Inquiring, Celia Elegant, Celia Weary and Celia Amused. The influence of Henri Matisse’s loose and uninterrupted mark-making is evident. The spontaneity of drawing directly onto the plate in tusche, a black lithographic liquid, using a large brush animates these portraits, in contrast to the stillness of the neo-classical drawings made in Paris earlier that decade.*

Celia
Textile designer, Celia Birtwell, has been a dear friend and close confidante to David Hockney since the 1960s. With their northern roots and shared sense of humour, they found they had much in common from their first meeting and together they were at the heart of bohemian London. The artist has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face, and she remains to this day, one of his favourite models.
Although often dubbed Hockney’s ‘muse’, their relationship is much more than that. They have always admired each other’s work and her sittings for him have been collaborations, as well as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. In his portraits of Celia, the artist has always paid close attention to her distinctive and romantic fabric designs and some of Celia’s own work is inspired by the artist.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Pencil and coloured pencil on paper using a camera lucida

Celia
Textile designer, Celia Birtwell, has been a dear friend and close confidante to David Hockney since the 1960s. With their northern roots and shared sense of humour, they found they had much in common from their first meeting and together they were at the heart of bohemian London. The artist has always been fascinated by the changing nature of Celia’s face, and she remains to this day, one of his favourite models.
Although often dubbed Hockney’s ‘muse’, their relationship is much more than that. They have always admired each other’s work and her sittings for him have been collaborations, as well as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. In his portraits of Celia, the artist has always paid close attention to her distinctive and romantic fabric designs and some of Celia’s own work is inspired by the artist.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Lithograph

Portrait of the Young Artist
As a schoolboy, Hockney had a passion for art, even before he fully understood what it meant to be an artist. An academic training at Bradford School of Art provided the foundation for his career, with its emphasis on drawing, painting and the study of anatomy. Inspired by the first art books he saw, initially in monochrome and then in colour, his early influences ranged from Piero della Francesca to Pierre Bonnard.
Drawing was compulsory when Hockney enrolled at the Royal College of Art in 1959 and he threw himself into the life classes. Swimming against the tide of the contemporary art of the time, as he has done ever since, he set himself the challenge of spending several weeks on two detailed academic drawings of a human skeleton he found at college.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Charcoal on paper

Self-portraits from the 1980s to the Millennium
In the autumn of 1983, almost every day for two months, Hockney challenged himself to produce a self-portrait in charcoal. This period of intense self-reflection was, in part, a reaction to the untimely deaths of many of his friends due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The honesty and vulnerability exposed in these drawings is a far cry from the confident self-portraits of thirty years earlier. Like the pages of a diary, these works record the daily changes in the artist’s moods and emotions.
In 1999, alongside his camera lucida drawings he made a series of self-portraits, for which he could not use this optical tool. These playful and vulnerable drawings in which he displays different facial expressions, were influenced by Rembrandt’s self-portrait etchings. In others, he adopted the classical side profile and half-length pose found in self-portraiture throughout art history.
In 2002 Hockney turned to watercolour, a medium he hadn’t explored since the 1960s. This new way of working freed up his approach; allowing him to draw quickly and directly onto paper. Hockney described the watercolour series as ‘portraits for the new millennium’, convinced that, despite his experimentation with the camera lucida, the human eye, the hand and the heart were the best tools for capturing the individuality of his sitters.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Lithograph

Maurice
Master printer, Maurice Payne’s lifelong friendship with the artist began in London in the mid-1960s, when they worked together on the etching suite, Illustrations from Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy (1967). For a time, Maurice worked as his assistant on significant print projects including Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969) and The Man with the Blue Guitar (1976-77).
In 1998, after a period of 20 years, they collaborated again when Maurice set up a print studio in Los Angeles. To encourage the artist, he would take the ready-prepared etching plates up to Hockney’s house in the Hollywood Hills and then take them back down the hill to print on a press he set up in West Hollywood. Working from life Hockney drew still lifes and portraits of his friends including his loyal dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie. At the time Hockney was working on monumental landscapes of the American West in his studio while making these intimate portraits in the domestic setting of his home.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Charcoal on paper

Exploring the Landscape of the Face
Gregory Evans and Hockney began an intimate relationship in Paris in 1974, when both lived on the left bank of the Seine. A consistent model for 50 years, assistant, studio manager and curator, the portraits tell the story of the ebb and flow of their time spent together.
In 1999 Hockney adopted another tool to capture the geography of the face. This new journey began when he saw an exhibition of portraits by the French artist, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, at the National Gallery. After studying the drawings he became convinced that Ingres had made his portraits using a camera lucida; a tiny prism suspended on the end of a flexible metal rod. Using this instrument Hockney was able to make quick notations in order to fix the position of the eyes, nose and mouth of his sitters. The tool allowed him to capture a quick likeness of those unfamiliar to him. That year he made 250 individual portrait drawings, all executed with pencil, and sometimes enhanced with white crayon and watercolour on fine, grey paper. The portraits of his close friends, whose faces were already imprinted on his mind, were the most sensitive.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery

Oil on canvas with masking tape

Hockney was visited by his parents whilst he was living intermittently in Paris (1973-5). It was there that he made the preparatory drawings and took reference photographs for the planned painting. While selecting the works for Drawing from Life in Hockney’s Los Angeles studio, the artist rediscovered the painting, believing that after abandoning it, the work had been destroyed. The masking tape was originally used to hang a piece of paper over the central panel as Hockney re-worked the surrounding area.*

From the exhibition


David Hockney: Drawing from Life
(November 2023 - January 2024)

David Hockney (b.1937) is regarded as one of the master draughtsmen of our times. He widely champions drawing, which is at the heart of his studio activity and has underpinned his work throughout his life. From the early pen and ink and coloured pencil drawings, to his more recent experiments with watercolour and digital technology, the artist’s inventive visual language has taken many different stylistic turns.
Over the past six decades he has never stood still, or rested on a particular approach, medium or technique, remaining inquisitive, playful and thought provoking while generously sharing his ideas with his audience. His drawing reflects his admiration for both the Old Masters and ‘modern Masters’ from Rembrandt to Picasso.
Drawing from Life explores the artist’s unique vision of the world around him, which is played out in portraits of himself and his intimate circle. A room of new ‘painted drawings’ of visitors to his Normandy studio in 2021-2 offer a glimpse of Hockney’s continuing working life.
All works in the exhibition are by David Hockney..
[*National Portrait Gallery]

Taken in National Portrait Gallery