Shortly
before all the Coronavirus closures I was lucky enough to see the David Hockney
: Drawing from Life exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery in London which
was such a treat and featured 150 of his drawings made throughout his life. I
saw a previous show of his at the Tate back in 2017 but that was a different
collection of works with not so much of a focus on portraits.
I have a
real admiration for those artists that specialise in portraits, particularly
self-portraits. I can clearly remember ‘those’ exercises in my Art classes and
let’s just say it was not my forte. I’m sure it is a skill that requires
practice but I never had the patience and I was always drawn to a different
sort of design but I have the utmost respect for those artists like Hockney
that have absolutely ‘cracked it’.
As this
pencil self portrait of a 19 year old Hockney shows, even before he attended
the Royal College of Art, his creative abilities were evident and he had
clearly mastered the skill of life drawing. Many (many) years ago when I was
17, and studying my Art Foundation year in Worthing, I had my first life
drawing class which is not an experience I will forget in a hurry. I had
several friends who had already done the module and I had seen their finished
efforts - busy charcoal sketches of a very voluptuous older lady who was well
known around the college as the life drawing model. When it was time for my
class to take place, I was setting up my easel in the studio when a young (and
good-looking) man entered the room, changed and then proceeded to take a naked
pose right in front of me. Not only was I somewhat shocked by this different
model, but he had placed himself looking directly at me. In my embarrassment, I
dropped my gaze and you can imagine what I was then confronted with which
caused great amusement to the model but even further embarrassment to me!
Throughout
his career, Hockney has shown a readiness to experiment with different media as
these two self-portraits show. In the piece on the right, from 1986, he used a
laser colour photocopier in which he experimented with layering including his
shirt which was put directly onto the glass plate of the copier. As someone who
enjoys using a wide range of materials myself, I really enjoyed seeing his
interpretations.
Alongside
his self-portraits we were given an insight into some key figures in his life
including his mother, and muses Celia Birtwell, Maurice Payne and ex
boyfriend Gregory Evans using a range of mediums including photo montages and
Picasso influenced interpretations.
The
exhibition also showed how Hockney had adapted to using digital art with his
iPad (which I have yet to try) and there was a film showing the pages of his
iPad sketchbook which was quite inspirational.
It is
indeed a tragedy that the current pandemic has understandably meant that galleries
and museums have had to close and the public are unable to enjoy this
particular exhibition. I hope that this light hearted blog has at least given
you a little insight into it and many apologies for the scary close-up of my
face at the exhibition!
Comments
Post a Comment