Happy Birthday, David Hockney! (IMAGES)

David Hockney was born on July 9, 1937 in Bradford, Yorkshire — the fourth of five children in a traditional middle class English family. Hockney’s father was an accountant an an amateur artist and his mother was a devoted homemaker who instilled in her children a serious work ethic. Since graduating from Bradford School of Art in the late 1950s, Hockney has been making waves in the art world. See an illustrated chronology on his website here. He first began to achieve international acclaim through his pool paintings, done on a trip to Southern California where he met Christopher Isherwood and Kenneth E. Tyler, among other like-minded writers and artists. It was here that Hockney met his former boyfriend and painting subject, photographer Peter Schlesinger, who told the Daily Beast this year that Hockney “taught me that you learn painting by doing it.”

hockney
British artist David Hockney stands before one of his paintings of the East Yorkshire landscape at The Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, London, ahead of his exhibition called ‘A Bigger Picture’. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)

In 1986, the Television Personalities recorded their tongue-in-cheek album, “They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles.” On the second song, they sing, wistfully, “Most of all, I want to be in David Hockney’s diaries…” referring to the seminal 1970s documentary about the English painter, where he talks about getting his inspirations from photo diaries of his life and travels. Hockey seems to know everyone worth knowing in the art world and beyond, and it’s no surprise that he’ll get lambasted and venerated in equal measure.

Despite the changing tides of the art world, Hockney continues pursuing his passion for representational landscapes, and employs traditional painting techniques or novel ones on his iPad. However, his relationship to technology isn’t new; in 1985, the artist used the Quantel Paintbox to “paint” on a screen. Seventeen years later, he depicted the Queen in an iPad drawing to mark the Jubilee. His latest exhibition, entitled, “A Bigger Picture,” is spending the summer and early fall at the Guggenheim in Bilbao after a successful run at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Happy birthday, to Britain’s most famous living painter!

See a slideshow of his latest work below:

Loading Slideshow...

  • David Hockney
    Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 and 29 November 2006
    Oil on six canvases
    182.9 x 365.8 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
    Courtesy of the artist
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

  • The Big Hawthorn, 2008
    Oil on nine canvases
    274.3 x 365.8 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
    Courtesy of the artist
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

  • Winter Timber, 2009
    Oil on fifteen canvases
    274.3 x 609.6 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
    Private collection
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson

  • David Hockney
    Under the Trees, Bigger 2010-11
    Oil on twenty canvases
    365.8 x 609.6 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
    Courtesy of the artist
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

  • The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty
    eleven)
    Oil on 32 canvases
    365.8 x 975.4 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm); one of a 52-part work
    Courtesy of the artist
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson

  • David Hockney
    The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011
    (twenty eleven) – 2 January
    iPad drawing printed on paper
    144.1 x 108 cm; one of a 52-part work
    Courtesy of the artist
    © David Hockney

  • David Hockney
    Ordinary Picture, 1964
    Acrylic on canvas
    182.9 x 182.9 cm
    Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution,
    Washington DC. Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates

  • David Hockney
    Pearblossom Highway, 11-18 April 1986 #1
    Photocollage
    119.4 x 163.8 cm
    The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of David Hockney
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates

  • David Hockney
    A Closer Winter Tunnel, February-March, 2006
    Oil on six canvases
    182.9 x 365.8 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
    Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
    Purchased with funds provided by Geoff and Vicki Ainsworth, the
    Florence and William Crosby Bequest and the Art Gallery of New
    South Wales Foundation, 2007
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

  • David Hockney
    Under the Trees, Bigger 2010-11
    Oil on twenty canvases
    365.8 x 609.6 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
    Courtesy of the artist
    © David Hockney
    Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

Also on HuffPost:

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes