David Hockney - Photo: DR

With this remarkable series, David Hockney shows his intimate universe, his loved ones, his friends, their children, thus constituting a remarkable gallery of portraits of those who crossed his path over the years, constituting in fact a vast panorama. of artistic Los Angeles of our time.

In 2012, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao already presented a monumental exhibition of landscapes, David Hockney: A Wider Vision. The same year, the artist left his native Yorkshire to return to Los Angeles. Rediscovering with the portrait the taste for peaceful contemplation, he executed, in the summer of 2013, the first of what will eventually become a series of more than 90 paintings; 82 of them are presented as part of the exhibition.

David Hockney conceives these portraits as a unique artistic corpus. The exhibition thus revolves around an almost chronological journey that allows for another psychological study: that of the artist himself. His emotional state seems to lighten as the series progresses, at the same time as his conviction about the format, the medium and the modus operandi asserts. All the canvases are the same size and show the model sitting in the same chair, against the same deep blue background, under the same bright, transparent light from Southern California. They were all painted in the same amount of time: three days.

“David Hockney: 82 portraits and 1 still life” - © David Hockney - © Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Among the models, all chosen from among his friends, relatives and acquaintances, are collaborators from the studio, other artists like John Baldessari, curators and gallery owners like Larry Gagosian.

"Celebrities are made for photography"says David Hockney. “Me, I don't portray celebrities while photography does. My celebrities are my friends. " Each portrait is thus the fruit of intense observation and thus turns into a psychological analysis.

Thanks to the virtuosity of the artist, the uniformity of the elements of each canvas accentuates the differences between the different models and lets their personality emerge with warm immediacy. With this series, at a time of the proliferation of selfies and photographic portraits on social media, Hockney reexamines the role of the painted portrait in an intense and enveloping installation. The divergent note, the only still life, is the result of the absence, one day, of one of the models. Eager to paint, the artist took what he had on hand, namely a selection of fruits and vegetables, to make his portrait.

Posing for David Hockney. Portrait of Edith Devaney, curator of the exhibition

It was the director of the artist's studio, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, who was given the delicate task of arranging the programming of all these portraits over a period of more than two years. Hockney painted Edith Devaney twice, first in September 2015, then in February 2016. This last portrait is the one presented in the exhibition, after a process of eliminating a few portraits of people he painted more than one time.

Edith Devaney's story:

“The second time I posed for him was towards the end of the project and I had already had the opportunity to analyze the poses and outfits of people who had been there before me. The only indication I received was to collect my hair; around the middle of the first portrait, Hockney decided it would look better. Many of the female models dressed elegantly for their portraits, so I decided to vary to wear more informal clothes.

“The second time I posed for him was towards the end of the project and I had already had the opportunity to analyze the poses and outfits of people who had been there before me. The only indication I received was to tie my hair up; around the middle of the first portrait, Hockney decided it would look better. As many of the female models dressed elegantly for their portraits, I decided, for variety, to wear more informal clothes.

The session started around nine in the morning. The studio was very tidy, with the canvas already ready on the easel and all the colors, brushes and palettes laid out on a table to the right. The platform with the chair was on the left, facing the easel. Sitting in the chair, I tried several poses and leaned forward with my head resting on my hand in what felt like a natural, familiar posture. It pleased Hockney, who hoped I could keep it going for three days.

The first part of the process, and perhaps the most intense, was the charcoal drawing which he traced directly on the canvas.

Hockney calls this sketch of the head, body and chair "fixing the pose". He claimed that he painted what he saw and made sure to see everything. The insight and focus of her gaze was remarkable, and her head was constantly moving back and forth from model to canvas.

Once the drawing was completed, the painting began. All the portraits were done in acrylic, a medium that Hockney had not used for twenty years. After the first works, he used a new brand of acrylic paint with a higher gel content, with the ability to stay wet for longer, allowing, over the three days, to lightly touch up the model's face.

After a one hour break for a good snack and a moment of lively conversation, the sessions continued until late in the evening. During the morning and afternoon rests, Hockney would sit in an armchair at a certain distance from the canvas to analyze its evolution while smoking. During these breaks, he commented on various aspects of the painting, but kept the most absolute silence while painting.

The act of painting proved to be highly physical for Hockney, who constantly moved back and forth to observe the canvas from near and far. There was a tremendous feeling of fluidity in his movements when he reached out to dip the brush, when he mixed new colors or when he chose another brush. He raised or lowered the easel with an electric motor so as to achieve, at the perfect height, his meticulous and detailed work.

Throughout the process, the intensity of her concentration did not wane at all. Any trace of the fatigue he would feel later was offset by the pleasure of creation.

The models participated in this pleasure as the image arose. Oddly enough, my portrait seemed familiar and foreign to me simultaneously. Hockney told me as he painted "what he saw", while admitting that we all see differently as our vision is colored by our many experiences. To be subjected to such careful scrutiny leads one to reflect on one's own way of thinking about one's physical appearance, and Hockney's consummate ability to reflect this inner complexity accentuates the psychological intensity of the pause time.

Once my portrait was finished, I asked him if he thought he had captured my personality. “I picked up an aspect of you,” he replied. "The first portrait had captured another aspect and if I did a third, it would be different again". Hockney's fascination with portraiture is inextricably linked to his deep empathy for human beings and for all the fragilities that we embody, “the human comedy”, as he himself expresses it. "

Practical information

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Bilbao, Spain
November 10, 2017 - February 25, 2018

https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/