Hockney's Portraits and People

The life and loves of one of the world’s best known artists, now published in paperback to coincide with a major exhibition at the Royal Academy, London Spanning several decades and showing how Hockney’s style has developed, this is a must-have book for all Hockney fans and lovers of modern art. From the 1950s on, Hockney’s most persistent subject matter, in paintings, drawings, collages and photoworks, has been people usually very close to him, as well as of himself. These works are narratives of autobiographical relationships:?they reflect the intimate and often intense stories of the artist’s life. They also explore different formal ways of representing the passage of time and at the same time the unavoidable but marvellous stillness of portraits. The works include fascinating sequences as he paints his mother, Henry Geldzahler, Celia Birtwell (on and off for decades), his lovers, great friends and the famous – celebrities, writers and artists who have been part of his life, such as Billy Wilder, Armistead Maupin, W.H. Auden, Henry Moore and Christopher Isherwood.