David Hockney
(1973) 

 

Also in Paris, Hockney draws a series of portraits of Celia Birtwell.

“Celia has a beautiful face, a very rare face with lots of things in it which appeal to me. It shows aspects of her, like her intuitive knowledge and her kindness, which I think is her rates virtue. To me she’s such a special person.”
 
David Hockney

 

Celia Wearing Checked Sleeves 


1973
Coloured pencil on paper
64.7 x 49.5 cm
Private collection
https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/1973

Celia Wearing Checkered Sleeves, 

1981
Lithograph for an exhibition in Chicago, May 1981
91 x 66 cm

 David Hockney
(1975) 
 

In the early 70’s Hockney is living in Paris for a couple of years.
He and Gregory Evans had met in 1971, but in 1975 they became close companions, taking trips to Glyndebourne and Italy together as their romance blossoms.

https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/1975

Gregory Evans


1975
Pastel on paper
77.5 x 52 cm
The David Hockney Foundation
https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/1975

 <b>David Hockney</b>
(1972) 

In 1975 Hockney abandoned an earlier version of this subject, which included a self-portrait reflected in the dressing table mirror (repr.in Livingstone, op.cit., pl.146). According to Livingstone, he made use of numerous colour photographs in T03255, although the figures were painted from life. The artist's father is portrayed reading a copy of Aaron Scharf's Art and Photography, while six volumes of the English translation of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu and a book on Chardin are visible on the bottom shelf of the trolley. Reflected in the mirror are a reproduction of Piero della Francesca's ‘The Baptism of Christ’ in the National Gallery and the top right-hand corner of Hockney's painting ‘Invented Man revealing Still Life’ 1975. 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-my-parents-t03255

My Parents
1977
Oil paint on canvas
182.9 x 182.9 cm
Tate London
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-my-parents-t03255

My Parents (first version)
1975
Oil paint on canvas
182.8 x 182.8 cm
The David Hockney Foundation
Exhibited for the first time in 2020 in the National Portrait Gallery
https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/storage/app/uploads/public/d23/431/fc8/thumb__1400_0_0_0_auto.jpg

 David Hockney 
(1970) 
 

George Lawson and Wayne Sleep 1972−75 is one of the last paintings from a sequence of large double portraits that occupied David Hockney between 1968 and 1977, although the artist never fully finished it. The ten-foot, landscape-format painting shows the antiquarian book dealer George Lawson sitting on a stool at a clavichord placed against a wall. His right hand holds down a key on the keyboard, but his body is turned away from the clavichord and towards the open window to the left of the painting − he thus appears in profile and marks the centre of the painting. Immediately to the left of the clavichord and adjacent to the window is a doorway with the door ajar; in this opening stands the ballet dancer Wayne Sleep, leaning against the doorframe by his left elbow and with his legs crossed − a casual contrapposto pose that is echoed by the curtains pulled to the side of the window. The casual pose and clothing of Sleep − T-shirt, white trousers and correspondent shoes − is in contrast to the more formal green suit, bow tie and polished black shoes worn by Lawson. The setting for the painting was Lawson’s flat in Wigmore Place, London

George Lawson and Wayne Sleep 
1972-75
Acrylic on canvas
214 x 305 cm
Tate, London
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-george-lawson-and-wayne-sleep-t14098

 David Hockney
(1971)
 

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy is an acrylic on canvas painting by the British artist David Hockney. Painted between 1970 and 1971, it depicts a couple, the fashion designer Ossie Clark and the textile designer Celia Birtwell in their flat in Notting Hill Gate, shortly after their wedding, with one of the couple's cats on Clark's knee. The white cat depicted in the painting was named Blanche; Percy was another of their cats, but Hockney thought "Percy" made a better title.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_and_Mrs_Clark_and_Percy

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy
1970-71
Acrylic on canvas
213 x 304 cm
Tate,  London
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-mr-and-mrs-clark-and-percy-t01269

 David Hockney
(1968)
 

An especially iconic example from the group of double portraits of friends and associates from the 196os. This painting depicts the contemporary-art collectors Fred and Marcia Weisman in the sculpture garden of their Los Angeles home. As stiff and still as the objects surrounding them, the couple stands apart, his stance echoed in the totem pole to the right, hers in the Henry Moore sculpture behind her. Brilliant light flattens the scene and sets the couple in sharp relief; they seem oblivious to each other as well as to their art.

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102234/american-collectors-fred-and-marcia-weisman

American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman)
1968
Acrylic on canvas
213.4 x 304.8 cm
Art Institute of Chicago
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102234/american-collectors-fred-and-marcia-weisman

 David Hockney
(1969)

A masterpiece of pictorial drama from the collection of Barney A. Ebsworth, Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott stands among the great icons of David Hockney’s oeuvre. Monumentally scaled and intimately observed, it is a glowing meditation on human and visual relationships, set within a panoramic theatre of colour and form. Hockney’s closest friend Henry Geldzahler – the legendary curator, critic and king of the New York art world – dominates the centre of the composition, framed by the city’s skyscrapers. Christopher Scott, his then-boyfriend, hovers to the right like a fleeting apparition. Completed in 1969, it is the third work in the career-defining series of seven double portraits that Hockney created between 1968 and 1975. With four held in museum collections, these extraordinary seven-by-ten-foot canvases represent the culmination of the artist’s naturalistic style, initiated in his Californian swimming pool paintings of the mid-1960s. 

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6191950

Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott
1969
Acrylic on canvas
214 x 305
Private collection (Sold by Christie’s on 6 March 2016)
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6191950