Photo Pest: David Hockney (1937-2026)

Passport Photo by David Sharkey (1979)

I always did what I wanted to do. I've done what I wanted to do every day.

Has there ever been a simpler expression of the gay quid pro quo?

David Hockney lured me to the New York Metropolitan Opera for the very first time in 1981. Bob O'Hearn, David's mentor, implied that no respectable homosexual could afford to miss his sets and costumes for Parade. He designed the poster, too. I can't remember a thing about the night except that we bought standing room tickets and the stage was as colorful as Candyland.

I paid a lot less attention to art in my youth than I do now. Hockney's dandyism and homosexuality made a bigger impression than his work which, I later learned, really never stopped coming: he created for more than 70 years, eventually embracing the i-Pad as enthusiastically as his paint brushes. I seriously considered hopping on a plane to see Hockney 25, his career-long retrospective of 400 works at the Fondation Louis Vuitton and then continuing on to London through the Chunnel to see Leigh Bowery! at the Tate, but recovery from knee surgery intervened.

But thanks to a Getty Museum visit in 2000, I have awoken most mornings of the 21st century to an expensively framed (in white ash!) souvenir of his Polaroid-inspired work. It speaks to me on so many levels: photography, collage and location. Sadly, the sunniness of my bedroom at 47 Pianos has faded it, adding an oddly conceptual element Hockney might have appreciated.

"Pearl Blossom Highway" (1986)

I didn't get to see a survey of his work until 2018 at the Met, the year we bought the Folly. I lugged the catalog to Florida because we had a pool, too, just like the cover image. Peter Schlesigner, Hockney's first lover, is the man in the jacket. The painting is a reaction to the painful end of their relationship. Art critics have inferred that the man swimming is Schlesinger's new boyfriend.

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972)

Both Hockney and Schlesinger play themselves in A Bigger Splash, a cinéma vérité-like documentary, filmed from 1970 to 1973, which chronicles their break-up and includes a scene of Hockney destroying an earlier version of the painting.

But like most gay men, they must have gotten over it. For several years after they stopped living together Schlesinger continued to model for Hockney before pursing an art career out of his shadow.

"Peter Schlesinger with Polaroid Camera" (1977)

Hockney seems to have invested a lot more effort in painting his first lover than his last, a former studio assistant with whom he spent his final 20 years. Meow! But like they always say, the first cut is the deepest--ain't that the truth?

JP Gonçalves de Lima, 3rd November 2021

A devoted son, Hockney spent the Christmas holidays with his parents in West Yorkshire until both passed.

"My Parents" (1977)

As I learned more about the man from his obituary, I wondered if he and Andy Warhol might have been what we today call frenemies. Born less than a decade apart, they certainly had a lot in common: their sexual orientation, very close relationships with their mothers, early and enduring fame, and their embrace of Polaroids. Their agreement to swap portraits in the early 70s suggests that Hockney got the better end of the deal, and no one ever tried to assassinate him!