David Hockney
(1972)
 

The next work brings together two of Hockney's themes from his paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s: the swimming pool, and the double portrait. It depicts a male figure in white trunks swimming underwater, and the painter Peter Schlesinger, Hockney's former lover and muse, fully clothed and standing at the edge of the pool looking down at the swimmer. The painting is set in southern France, near Saint-Tropez. In characteristic Hockney style, the foreground is simplified and flattened with a view of tree-clad hills in the background. The composition was inspired by a serendipitous combination of photographs that Hockney noticed on his studio floor: one of a man swimming underwater, taken in California in 1966, and the other of a man standing looking at the ground. Juxtaposed, it appeared as if the standing person were looking at the swimmer.

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
1972
Acrylic on canvas
213.5 x 305 cm
Private collection (Sold at Christie's in November 2018 for $90.3 million, at that time the highest price ever paid at auction for a painting by a living artist. )
https://www.christies.com/en/stories/david-hockney-portrait-of-an-artist-pool-with-two-figures-fc646a8d6dfb4ea98814460d351e485b

 David Hockney
(1967)
 

Painted in 1967, A Bigger Splash is perhaps David Hockney's best-known artwork. What is it that makes this painting so iconic and seductive – and still very modern-looking fifty years after it was made?
The painting depicts a sun-drenched swimming pool in Los Angeles. Behind the pool is a pink modernist building and an empty chair. The silhouettes of neighbouring buildings are reflected in the building’s large window. Two spindly palm trees and a neat border of grass suggest carefully manicured gardens. Unusually for Hockney's paintings from this time, there is no-one in sight and the scene is almost entirely still … apart from the splash.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-a-bigger-splash-t03254/understanding-david-hockneys-bigger-splash

A bigger splash
1967
Acrylic paint on canvas
242 x 243 cm 
Tate, London
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-a-bigger-splash-t03254

David Hockney

(1968)

Before the famous double portraits and before some of the best-known pool paintings, Hockney occasionally turned his attention to the California coastline itself. In California Seascape the subject is deceptively simple: sea, sky and a distant horizon. Yet the painting captures something that fascinated him from the moment he arrived in Los Angeles—the extraordinary light, the sense of openness and the feeling that space stretches on forever. Sometimes a painting doesn't need much more than that.

California Seascape
1968
Acrylic on canvas
213 x 305 cm
Private collection

 David Hockney
(1964)
 

California Art Collector was the second painting by Hockney from his first, momentous visit to Los Angeles and is the first painting to convey the dramatic impact his new surroundings would have on his career. Hockney's choice of subject is only the most obvious development, as this new environment would also subtly affect his aesthetic choices of materials and technique. With this painting, Hockney first used acrylic paints and with a new sense of light and color, he depicted his first swimming pool while synthesizing his first impressions of the affluence and glamour of Beverly Hills.
 
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2009/contemporary-art-evening-auction-n08592/lot.25.html

California Art Collector (1964)
1964
Acrylic on canvas
152 x 177cm
Private collection ( sold at Sotheby's, New York, November 10, 1993, Lot 31)
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2009/contemporary-art-evening-auction-n08592/lot.25.html

David Hockney
(1967)
 

His seminal work, “A Lawn Being Sprinkled,” is a defining piece in his series of California Dreaming paintings. Created in 1967, this acrylic on canvas painting measures 60 x 60 inches and depicts an everyday scene in Los Angeles.
Hockney’s signature style lends itself perfectly to the subject matter, which includes an abstraction of Californian lifestyle through a perfectly tended lawn with a sprinkler creating v-shaped mists of water. The clear blue sky in the background gives the painting a serene feel while adding depth to the composition.

https://www.artchive.com/artwork/a-lawn-being-sprinkled-david-hockney-1967/

A Lawn Being Sprinkled
1967
Acrylic on Canvas
152.4 × 152.4 cm
Private collection (Sold by Christie’s, 16 May 2024)
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6482947

 David Hockney
(1966)

This painting won the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 6 (now known as the John Moores Painting Prize) in 1967. It shows the communal swimming pool of an apartment block at 1145 Larrabee Street, Hollywood, just north of Sunset Boulevard. This was the home of one of Hockney's friends, the art dealer and gallery owner Nick Wilder. Hockney lived there from summer 1966 until early 1967 whilst at the same time renting a decrepit studio in central Los Angeles. Hockney’s boyfriend, Peter Schlesinger, a 19-year old painter whom he had met while teaching, is the naked figure climbing out of the pool.

https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/peter-getting-out-of-nicks-pool

Peter getting out of Nick’s Pool
1966
Acrylic on Canvas
152.4 x 152.4 cm
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/peter-getting-out-of-nicks-pool

David Hockney
(1967)


Increasingly, Hockney is preoccupied with that fundamental task of painting—how to represent light, specifically, to naturalistic effect. “The Room, Tarzana” is based on a department store’s advertisement for bedroom furniture, but Hockney re-envisions the sunlit scene to show Peter Schlesinger lying on his stomach on the natty made single bed, in T-shirt and socks, his bare buttocks exposed at the paintings centre.

https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/1967

The Room, Tarzana
1967
Acrylic on canvas
242.3 x 242.3 cm
Private collection