Important Features Of Hockney's Work example essay topic

288 words
David Hockney works mainly in the USA, but is most definitely the best known and critically acclaimed British artists of his generation. His portraits and landscapes are usually depicting people and places he knows very well, and his art is frequently autobiographical. He has enjoyed a love affair with Los Angeles, and the shocking pinks and turquoise blues in his swimming pool paintings are used to create images showing the 'good-life' vibe of the city. Hockney is well known for being a homosexual; he is also a highly regarded graphic artist, set designer, and.

The Los Angeles lifestyle and landscape became important features of Hockney's work. There were other important changes in his work as well: he started using acrylics rather than oil paint and he made increasing use of photography for purposes of documentation. His life was professionally successful - he had no fewer than five one-man exhibitions in Europe in 1966 - and personally happy. In 1966 he met Peter Schlesinger, a young Californian art student who became his lover and favourite model. A Bigger Splash was painted in Calif omia in the early summer of 1967. It is a record of a typical warm, sunny, cloudless day; from the position of the shadows cast by the eaves of the building and the chair, it appears to be midday when the sun is highest in the sky and the heat is most intense.

The solitary figure, who has just dived into the pool, has been deliberately overwhelmed by the strength and composure of the rest of the composition. The hidden depths of this picture take longer to assimilate than its immediate joyful and decorative appeal.