California and David Hockney: How Los Angeles changed his style

Thought I'd share with you all my essay on the fascinating David Hockney!

David Hockney began his career with a very abstracted style of painting. He used his art to express his sexuality in a still conservative London arena. His works combined both abstract and figurative elements, and he used text and numbers heavily within his paintings. After his relocation to California in late 1963 his work took on a new life. He began exploring an almost architectural style, simplified and simplistic, yet at the same time, very realistic. He used strong lines and a far more pastel palette, representative of the typical American suburban colours of the time. Although his work still explored homosexuality, and regularly showed naked men, his style became remarkably different from that which had earned him the respect of his teachers and peers at the Royal College of Art in London.

His painting Doll Boy 1960-61 shows a background with strong diagonal lines overlaid with a very abstracted figure of a boy. The figure is in stark contrast to the controlled background, being painted with hurried brushstrokes that show much expressive movement. The colour within this painting is bright and vibrant and the subject matter explores sexuality in a seemingly open, yet still quite conservative way. Cliff Richards’ song Livin’Doll had been a recent hit and is referenced within the painting in the forms of the numbers 3 and 18 being placed in a simple alphabetical code for the letters C and R.  (Archer, 2002 p.25) The word queen is written over the bottom of the painting, perhaps implying that the Living Doll within Cliff Richards famous song, was actually gay.

We Two Boys Together Clinging, 1961 shares the same hurried brushstrokes and repeated vertical patterns as Doll Boy. The painting also incorporates text and numbers and is done with a bright and vibrant palette. This painting openly explores the idea of homosexuality, with the two boys kissing and looking back at the viewer perhaps in defiance of the still conservative London audience. Both of these paintings are painted in an almost childlike way, very simplified with no detail to be seen. There are no muscles or sculpted tone, as can be found in his later work. Despite the difference in style, he continued to explore his sexuality within his paintings after his relocation to California.

Despite the childlike nature of these early paintings, or perhaps because of the irony of combining such a simplistic style with such adult subject matter, David Hockneys’ work drew acclaim from his peers and earned him success. Archer describes why his work was successful:  ‘... [they are] noteworthy for their wilful mix of abstract and figurative elements, and for the manner in which they used the marks of graffiti and language of teenage crushes in the expression of sexuality and desire.’ (2002, p.25)

After his relocation in late 1963 he found that California was exactly as he had hoped it would be. Within the first week of arriving he had bought a car and earned his American drivers licence. He had driven himself to Los Vegas and won money there, set up a studio and begun painting. It was exactly as he imagined and so he immersed himself fully in the culture of 1960’s America. (Lucie-Smith, 1995 p. 44) His painting Building, Pershing Square, Los Angeles 1964 shows none of his earlier frenzied brushstrokes, rather it looks very deliberate and smooth. The painting is very calming to look at, and is almost architectural in style. He has still incorporated text within this work, but the text has a purpose: it is the name of the building he is depicting. This painting has strong lines, but those lines are painted with a much more muted pastel palette.

Man Taking a Shower in Beverly Hills 1964, shows how he embraced this new architectural style. It shows strong diagonals and a very simplified, or simplistic depending on your viewpoint, look into the bathroom of a man taking a shower. The perspective is distorted and as a viewer you are not quite sure whether you are looking at one room, or three. The tiles on the walls of the shower are painted in such a way that you are not sure which direction the wall is facing. In the upper right corner of the painting is a half view of a dining table and chairs, which begs the question: are we looking at a window type view of another room, or are we looking at a picture of a dining setting? The strong line of the pink carpet adjacent to the shower leads our eye directly to this view, so perhaps Mr Hockney wanted to create some confusion within his picture. The wet naked man within the shower shows how ‘fascinated with the images of young, built, and tan men’ he had become. Indeed, this was a repeated subject in many of his Californian paintings, with many of them including ‘mainly wet, sculpted men’. (www.davidhockney.com)

In A Bigger Splash 1967, he shows us his now favourite subject of the suburban but sunny Californian landscape. This painting is very architectural, utilising a soft pastel palette so typical of the suburbs in America in the 1960’s. It appears very simplified, yet in actuality is quite detailed. The shadows within the plate windows are layered with tonal variations and are very precise. The splash of the water adds movement and vibrancy giving the image layers of interest and ensuring viewer curiosity.  He ‘creates a delightful interplay between the stolid pink verticals of a Los Angeles setting and the exuberance of spray as the unseen diver enters the pool. [There is] no visible presence here, just that lonely, empty chair, and a bare, almost frozen world. Yet that wild white splash can only [have] come from another human’. (www.ibilio.org/wm/paint/auth/hockney/)

According to Hughes, David Hockney shows us a ‘detached, amiable, but sharply discriminating ... affectionate image of the blank good life under the California sun’. (1991 p.420) Before his relocation to California, Hockneys’ work was simplistic yet abstracted, exploring his views on homosexuality with hurried brushstrokes full of movement and bright vibrant colour palettes. After he moved, he embraced the seedy underground of 1960’s Los Angeles and found an entirely new way to express his sexuality through his work. He still created movement and interest within his paintings, simply with a new technique. He piqued the viewers’ curiosity by using a different type of simplification, a more subtle colour palette and a much more naturalistic painting style.  His colours reflect the sun sea and sky that forms so much of the Californian lifestyle and his subjects are the ordinary, yet somehow extraordinary Californian suburb dwellers. These paintings are vastly different in appearance and technique, and seem a world away from the work he was creating in Londons’ cold, dreary and conservative art world. 

David Hockney, The Most Beautiful Boy In The World, 1960-61

Man Taking a Shower in Beverly Hills, 1964 David Hockney

REFERENCE LIST

Archer, Michael. 2002 Art Since 1960 New Edition, Thames and Hudson, London, UK

Hughes, Robert. 1991 Shock of The New, Thames and Hudson, London, UK.

Lucie-Smith, Edward. 1995 Art Today, Phaidon Press Ltd., London, UK.

www.davidhockney.com n.d. accessed June 11, 2012

www.ibilio.org/wm/paint/auth/hockney/ n.d. accessed June 11, 2012