While David Hockney is best known for his saturated California poolsides, admirers may be less acquainted with the earlier inspirations that were crucial to the artist’s practice. Starting this Tuesday, December 6, Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, will showcase 16 rarely seen works completed at the beginning of Hockney’s career, when he dabbled in different styles, media, and subject matter as he formalized his signature Pop practice. From pressed paper pulp works to lithograph prints, Hockney/Origins channels us through the various influences and techniques, both lifelong and short-lived, the artist zeroed in on between ages 24 and 43.
On loan from a private collection, the works in Hockney/Origins span across observational landscapes and portraiture, modern architecture, and literary references. One of the earliest pieces that anchors the show, “A Grand Procession of Dignitaries in the Semi-Egyptian Style” (1961), encapsulates Hockney’s experimental tendencies during his academic career at the Royal College of Art in London. Inspired by the translation of Greek poet Constantine P. Cafavy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians” (1898) and Pablo Picasso’s 1960 retrospective at the Tate, Hockney loosely rendered three human figures — a clergyman, a soldier, and an industrialist — with stiff, inflated silhouettes across a black stage that cuts across the scene.
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In an interview with Hyperallergic, Bruce Museum curator Margarita Karasoulas pointed out that the painting depicts an “obviously imagined scene” that wavers between total flatness and innumerable layers. The use of text and numbers throughout the work was on brand for Hockney during this point in his practice, but Karasoulas was especially enamored by the painting’s “basis in literary conceits,” considering the artist’s penchant for observational interpretations.
The work was displayed at the Bruce Museum once before, in 2005, but is making a return to the institution that debuted a massive expansion in April. “The painting has been reproduced in literature constantly but so many people have not seen it, so I think it will be a real surprise to them,” the curator said.
The show will also feature two works from Hockney’s Paper Pools (1978) series derived from dyed paper pulp adhered together by a hydraulic press. While Hockney’s most recognizable pool paintings capture the sunny glory of Southern California, Paper Pools fixates on master printer and long-time friend Kenneth Tyler’s backyard beauty in Mount Kisco, New York. Hockney’s stint with pressed pulp was brief and tied to a serendipitous New York pitstop between his travels from England to Los Angeles, but the technique was remarkable in its ability to capture the fluidity and refraction of light on moving water.
“Hockney is always playing with this idea of presence and absence,” Karasoulas explained about “Paper Pool 15,” which features a diving board, and “Paper Pool 16,” depicting the artist’s nude and submerged lover, Gregory Evans. “You see that in some of his earlier paintings of swimming pools — a big splash but no figure. I think that Hockney sort of gestures to those ideas in these two images.”
On the notion of muses, Hockney/Origins also includes six vastly different and emotive full-figured portraits of the artist’s close friend, fashion designer Celia Birtwell, who sat for the artist multiple times. Hockney also defects from figuration in “Panama Hat” (1972), a combination of portraiture and still life capturing the essence of friend and curator Henry Geldzahler through signature accessories as stand-ins for his physical form. The stripes of the jacket radiate with tangible life in a striking image of crisp edges and high contrast.
Additional highlights of the show include Hockney’s painterly representations of modern architecture in “Japanese House and Tree” (1978) and “French Shop” (1971). The former, Karasoulas notes, exemplifies Henri Matisse’s influence on the artist in terms of the curvilinear “cut-out” forms strewn across the composition, as well as the exuberant color palette and painterly hand.
The closing date for Hockney/Origins has not yet been determined, so stateside viewers can walk down memory lane throughout the artist’s past as he continues to churn out new work day by day.
Source: Hyperallergic.com