{"id":1109,"date":"2022-06-27T17:20:24","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T15:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hockney2022.ch\/splash\/"},"modified":"2022-07-13T14:24:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T12:24:53","slug":"splash","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.hockney2022.ch\/en\/hockney\/splash\/","title":{"rendered":"Splash!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cL.A. was really three times better then what I expected it to be.\u201d\n<\/h2>\n\n
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On moving to Los Angeles, David Hockney found new motifs: he painted the city, the light, his friends and swimming pools.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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A new World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1964 Hockney moved from Great Britain to Los Angeles. That move changed almost everything for David Hockney: the sun-drenched metropolis formed a great contrast to his British homeland, which he found oppressive. What fascinated him above all about Los Angeles was the modern lifestyle: the wide boulevards, the rectangular commercial buildings, the tall slim palm trees along the roadsides and the clocked lawn sprinklers in the front of the houses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In L.A. the artist could live out his homosexuality more openly than in London. Hence the male nude and same-sex desire became central motifs in the pool paintings which made him famous overnight. They stand for hedonism, sexual freedom and love of life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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David Hockney, Man in Shower in Beverly Hills<\/em>, 1964, Acrylic on canvas, 167.3 \u00d7\u00a0167 cm, Tate: Purchased, \u00a9 David Hockney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cTo me it was full of blond surfers. If you are gay, you like that.\u201d<\/p>David Hockney<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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David Hockney, California Copied from 1965 Painting in 1987<\/em>, Acrylic on canvas, 152.1 \u00d7 182.6 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Presented by the artist, \u00a9 David Hockney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Water<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Hockney found it particularly fascinating to depict water. He painted it as a reflecting surface in a pool, bubbling out of a tap, stylised, or as lines or planes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hockney certainly did not shy away from the artistic challenge this involved and tried to capture the linear light reflections and mirror-imaging on the surface of water. To heighten the impression of the play of lines on the surface of the water, he even painted the walls and bottom of his own swimming pool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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David Hockney painting Kenneth Tyler’s swimming pool, Bedford Village, New York, May 1987, photo: Kenneth Tyler, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Kenneth Tyler on a sun lounge beside his pool, recently painted by David Hockney, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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David Hockney taking Polaroid shots of Tyler pool for the Paper Pools<\/em> series with friends looking on and Day Pool with Three Blues<\/em> in the background, photo: Kenneth Tyler, Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, New York, 1978, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cMy pool paintings were about transparency: how do you paint water? It\u2019s an interesting problem. Unlike a pond, a swimming pool reflects the light. Those dancing lines that I used to draw on the pools are really there on the surface of the water. It\u2019s a challenge to draw them.\u201d<\/p>David Hockney, 2011<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Great Wave<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Hockney\u2019s fascination with water has accompanied him throughout his artistic career. In The Wave, A Lithograph<\/em>, he emphasises a single wave, making it seem like a mighty sculpture or like a steamboat with a trail of smoke running across the sky from the tip of the wave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great wave also has a great model: The Great Wave off Kanagawa<\/em> by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. This coloured woodblock print has been an important source of inspiration for numerous western artists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa<\/em><\/em>, 1830\u20131832, Woodblock print, 25\u202f\u00d7 37\u202fcm, Google Art Project.jpg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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David Hockney, The Wave, A Lithograph<\/em>, 1990, Lithography on paper, 68.8 \u00d7 96.6 cm, Tate: Presented by the artist 1993, \u00a9 David Hockney \/ Tyler Graphics Ltd., photo: Richard Schmidt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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In the Hollywood Hills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

David Hockney lived in Los Angeles for several decades. In 1982 he bought a house in the Hollywood Hills near the legendary Mulholland Drive. David Hockney explored the city on long fast car drives, listening to music, preferably by Richard Wagner. Perception is altered by speed and the curving roads: the landscape changes its shape, the image adapts to the feeling of driving. David Hockney painted a bird\u2019s eye view of the road leading through the Nichols Canyon to his house: it winds its way between colourful houses and hills, stopping abruptly just short of picture\u2019s edge. At the same time, the painting is like a map or a view summarising the car journey as an experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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David Hockney’s house in Los Angeles, photo: Jeffrey Daniels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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David Hockney, Interior with Blue Terrace and Garden<\/em>, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 121.9 \u00d7 243.8 cm, \u00a9 David Hockney, photo: Richard Schmidt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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In Search of Hockney’s Hollywood<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Younger artists are repeatedly interpreting Hockney\u2019s paintings. The Belgian artist Rinus Van de Velde, for example, created his own version of Hockney\u2019s Nichols Canyon<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motif corresponds almost exactly to Hockney\u2019s painting. Only the street names are missing, and the picture is painted in black and white. Below the landscape we read: \u201cTell Me How I get There, David.\u201d Unlike Hockney, who liked to paint outdoors, Rinus Van de Velde prefers to take mental trips in his studio. With his charcoal drawing of Nichols Canyon Van de Velde enters into a fictional dialogue with Hockney: \u201cHow do I get there?\u201d is intended less as a request for directions to Hockney\u2019s house and more in a metaphorical sense: how it is possible today to follow in the footsteps of masters like Picasso, Van Goth or even David Hockney?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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