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with a text by Tim Barringer and an interview by Edith Devaney
‘I think I’ve found something that I could go on with forever, because people are fascinating, they’re mysterious really’
David Hockney OMCHRA is perhaps the most popular and versatile British artist living today. This lavishly illustrated book explores his relationship with portraiture, focusing on the extraordinary series 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life, which he has been painting in Los Angeles in the last few years.
For a brief period in 2013 Hockney stopped painting altogether, but after moving from Yorkshire back to California he revisited his acrylic paints and bold colours. Vibrant, observant and full of life, these portraits mark a return to vivid, Technicolor form. His subjects are friends, family and art-world luminaries, among them John Baldessari, Celia Birtwell, Larry Gagosian, Barry Humphries and Lord Rothschild.
Tim Barringer’s thorough and engaging account of Hockney’s work in portraiture culminates in his interpretation of this latest series. Edith Devaney talks to the artist about the works, which he describes as ‘twenty-hour exposures’, in reference to the time each one takes to paint. Intermediate stages of several paintings give the reader a unique insight into Hockney’s working method.
Tim Barringer is Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art at Yale University. He was co-author of David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (RA Publications, 2012).
Edith Devaney is Curator of Contemporary Projects at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro
24 June – 22 October 2017
