Vogue Paris cover
Contents
1985

Vogue

Hockney’s 41-page essay on ways of disrupting long-held conventions of perspective in Western art, as represented through images of his own work, appears in the December issue of Vogue Paris after months of preparation, with Hockney insisting on complete editorial and design [NESTED]control. On the magazine’s cover is Hockney’s Cubism-inspired portrait of Celia Birtwell painted in heavy makeup to compete with the other cover girls on the magazine rack. 

When they first asked me, I refused. I didn’t even know enough about fashion, and I was not interested in it anyway. Then they said it needn’t be about fashion, it could be about anything. I thought, if it can be about anything, then I’ll do it. I thought we could make my kind of photocollages work on the page ... and show therefore, that it’s possible to break photography up, change it, provided it worked on the printed page. After all, forty pages in the middle of Vogue is forty pages in the middle of pictures which make use of one-point perspective, because all the rest of the photographs in the magazine are made in a conventional way. I wanted to show how photography could be done differently.

When they first asked me, I refused. I didn’t even know enough about fashion, and I was not interested in it anyway. Then they said it needn’t be about fashion, it could be about anything. I thought, if it can be about anything, then I’ll do it. I thought we could make my kind of photocollages work on the page ... and show therefore, that it’s possible to break photography up, change it, provided it worked on the printed page. After all, forty pages in the middle of Vogue is forty pages in the middle of pictures which make use of one-point perspective, because all the rest of the photographs in the magazine are made in a conventional way. I wanted to show how photography could be done differently.

Vogue Paris cover
Photo by Richard Schmidt
Vogue Paris

Paint Trolley

He includes a copy of the Vogue issue on the bottom rack of the photographic collage Paint Trolley, which wittily pictures traditional art-making materials and equipment in a single motif of densely overlapping photographs. With all the rich color, detail, and scale expected of a painting, Paint Trolley speaks to advances in visual art-making—in seeing—made possible through photography.

Hockney sporting polka dots and stripes

Hearing versus seeing

A new hearing aid improves Hockney’s hearing, [NESTED]bringing him to reflect on how his reduced sensitivity to sound has sharpened his visual awareness.

Music is more alive again and sounds seem spatial, and made me think that over the last years to compensate for my muffled ears I developed a strong visual space sense. I say this because I’m very aware I seem to see in another way that has to do with noticing movement of the eye (time) and perception of space. A blind man develops his hearing to define his space; could not a deaf person develop his sight ... Anyway there’s no doubt that either from the theater or somewhere else I became more aware of space and time. All the photography is to do with it, and all the subsequent paintings, and something is happening in the paintings that seems like a new kind of pictorial space to me.

Music is more alive again and sounds seem spatial, and made me think that over the last years to compensate for my muffled ears I developed a strong visual space sense. I say this because I’m very aware I seem to see in another way that has to do with noticing movement of the eye (time) and perception of space. A blind man develops his hearing to define his space; could not a deaf person develop his sight ... Anyway there’s no doubt that either from the theater or somewhere else I became more aware of space and time. All the photography is to do with it, and all the subsequent paintings, and something is happening in the paintings that seems like a new kind of pictorial space to me.

Portrait of Mother I
An Image of Ken
Hotel Acatlan: Two Weeks Later
Portrait of Mother III
Views of Hotel Well II
Views of Hotel Well III
Portrait of Mother II
Number One Chair
White Porcelain
Views of Hotel Well I

Associate Royal Academician

In London, the Royal Academy of Arts elects Hockney as an Associate Royal Academician.

Hockney and stripes

Quantel Paintbox

Hockney’s experiments in new technologies of picture-making lead BBC producer Michael Deakin to ask him to try out a new computer workstation for designing television graphics, the Quantel Digital Paintbox. The Paintbox workstation allows Hockney to apply an electronic pen to a touchboard, with the resulting marks appearing live on-screen for broadcast in 1986 on the program Painting with Light.

I’m painting with light on glass. The only equivalent where you would get colors like this is stained glass itself where you can get a richness of color that even paint can’t give. It has almost a neon glow.

I’m painting with light on glass. The only equivalent where you would get colors like this is stained glass itself where you can get a richness of color that even paint can’t give. It has almost a neon glow.

Anyone who likes drawing or mark-making would like to explore new media. I’m not a mad technical person, but anything visual appeals to me. In linocuts, for example, everything has to be bold. You don’t make tiny, thin lines in a linocut, it would be too niggily. But get an etching plate, it’s all about fine lines. Anybody who draws will enjoy that sort of variety of graphic medium: because it requires inventiveness.

Exhibitions

Solo

  • New Color Lithographics, Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, NY, USA (May 1985).
  • Wider Perspectives Are Needed Now, Knoedler Gallery, London, UK (opens Jul 25, 1985).
  • Eight New Lithographs, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA (Aug 6–Sep 14).
  • Paintings of the Early 1960s, André Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY, USA (Sep 19–Oct 19); catalogue.
  • New Work, André Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY, USA (Dec 5, 1985–Jan 4, 1986).
  • Images et pensées pour le Magazine Vogue Paris, Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, France (Dec 10, 1985–Jan 15, 1986).
  • Wider Perspectives Are Needed Now, L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, USA (Dec 17, 1985–Jan 18, 1986).

Group

  • From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists’ Illustrated Books, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (Mar 20–May 19); catalogue.
  • The Painter’s Music/The Musician’s Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA (Nov 17, 1985), collaboration with the chamber ensemble “An die Musik,” Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland.

Publications

Publications

  • David Hockney fotógrafo, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, British Council, Lisbon, Portugal.
  • David Hockney: Paintings of the Early 1960’s, André Emmerich Gallery, New York.
  • Hockney Paints the Stage, by Martin Friedman, London: Arts Council of Great Britain.
  • Martha’s Vineyard and other places: My Third Sketchbook from the Summer of 1982, by David Hockney, London: Thames & Hudson.
  • Paris Vogue, Dec/Jan 1985, by David Hockney, Paris: Condé Nast.
  • David Hockney (Reprint), by Marco Livingstone, London: Thames & Hudson.

Honor

Honor

  • Elected Associate Royal Academician, Royal Academy of Arts, London.