Famous Artists: Hockney's Biography PDF

STAGE 4 Unit focus: Famous Artists Text focus: Biography Hockney Hockney’s name is famous across the world. He is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century and has influenced others for decades. Born in 1937 in Bradford, David Hockney began his journey to prominence in...

STAGE 4 Unit focus: Famous Artists Text focus: Biography Hockney Hockney’s name is famous across the world. He is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century and has influenced others for decades. Born in 1937 in Bradford, David Hockney began his journey to prominence in the 1960s. At the time, Pop Art was a huge movement in the British art scene. It was full of colour and had big, bold designs. This suited Hockney down to the ground, and he began to make a name for himself as a Pop Artist. Pop Artists like Hockney were mostly young and adventurous. They felt that the art in museums could be a bit stuffy. They set out to create something completely different. Hockney’s work covers lots of different topics. Some of his most famous paintings were of swimming pools in Los Angeles in the 1960s. On the other hand, his picture of his parents si ng quietly in a room is also one of his most popular. “Portrait of an Artist” was painted in 1972 and sold for $90 million in 2018! That makes him the second-most expensive living artist in the world. Many of his other works are also valued at tens of millions of dollars. Even a signed print of one of his pictures could be worth up to $500,000! David first visited California in 1964. He had already had a successful art exhibition in London and wanted to branch out. When he first flew over Los Angeles, he fell in love with the bright colours of the houses and the swimming pools. He painted his first famous swimming pool painting that same year. Lots of Hockney’s work at that time seems to have been inspired by lost love. He was in a relationship with a man named Peter Schlesinger, but they broke up in 1971. Many of his paintings at that time were double portraits. They showed two men in different situations but o en looking at each other lovingly. This was when he painted “Portrait of an Artist”. It shows his lost love standing on the edge of a pool as another swimmer swims towards him. It shows Schlesinger moving on to find new love. all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com Hockney may be famous for brightly-coloured swimming pools, but portraits have been an important part of his work for a long time. He has produced over 300 self-portraits and hundreds more of other people. He has said, “I generally only paint people I know” rather than famous people. He particularly likes creating portraits of two people together because he said they are twice as interesting to look at. Photography has also been important in Hockney’s work. The 1980s was a busy time for David. He began producing a series of collages that he called “joiners”. He would take lots of photographs of the same subject and then join them together in a large collage. He said that these gave the pictures more life than just taking a single photograph. Hockney splits his time now between the USA and Britain but is still producing art and experimenting with new materials and ideas. VOCABULARY FOCUS 1. If somebody is “influenced” by somebody, what does it mean? 2. Which word in the text describes existing art as being “boring”? 3. Find and copy a phrase that means “move into other areas”. 4. Which phrase in the text refers to a picture of the artist themselves? 5. What would you expect to see in an image describes as a “collage”? R R S I R VIPERS QUESTIONS When did Hockney paint his first picture about a swimming pool? Where does he live now? How did Los Angeles influence Hockney’s work? What evidence is there that people like Hockney’s work? Which type of art first propelled Hockney to fame? all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com