Drawing From Life

or the things I have learned from David Hockney

My weekly update nearly didn’t happen this week but here I am by the skin of my teeth. I usually get this written on a Wednesday or Thursday, I leave it for a day or two before going back and editing and then I schedule it to be published on Sunday morning. This week I knew I would be busy on Wednesday. It was memory café with Mum plus other time consuming errands. Good news – I won a game of bingo at the café which is about as exciting as it gets. Bad news – Mum claimed my prize (a bag of chocolates) for herself although she did ask me if I would like one of her chocolates. You have to laugh, but anyway I digress!

I managed to write a very rough draft on Wednesday evening, when I am never at my best, intending to finish it the following morning but then in a last minute decision I took the train into London on Thursday to catch the David Hockney exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. (It’s on for one more week until 21^st January if you want to catch it.) As a result here I am wanting to write about that instead, so Wednesday’s rough draft has been cast aside for another time, because… carpe diem. Which in a roundabout way is what the exhibition meant to me, reminding us to seize each day with wonder and curiosity, go with the flow and grab opportunities when they arise.

What I admire about David Hockney the most, and there is a lot to admire, is the fact that he has never stopped learning and pushing himself as an artist. For over six decades he hasn’t stood still, never sticking to a single technique or medium. Just when you think you have the measure of him, he turns out something new and surprises us all. Whether you like his work or not seems to me irrelevant because it is his constant curiosity and amazing work ethic that is so totally inspirational. Drawing is at the heart of his practice, often drawing the same subjects over and over again, and in particular portrait drawing.

The exhibition ‘David Hockney: Drawing from Life’, was only on for three weeks before the Portrait Gallery’s closure due to Covid in March 2020. It returned in November 2023 with the addition of thirty new portraits all made directly onto the canvas in acrylic paint, depicting visitors to Hockney’s Normandy studio during 2021 and 2022.

The exhibition explores Hockney’s work through portraits of mainly just five sitters: his mother, friends Celia Birtwell, Gregory Evans and Maurice Payne plus himself. Working in a wide range of media from pencil, coloured crayons, etching, pen and ink, photography, paint and iPad drawing we witness how he constantly explores new ideas. The range of work is awe inspiring and shows Hockney to be a true graphic master.

A young David Hockney, aged 16, self portrait from his days at Bradford School of Art, 1954

David Hockney, self portrait, iPad drawing

His self-portraiture is unforgiving as his intense gaze stares out at us the viewer. We can see what he is seeing, which is the undisguised truth of a man aging, starting with the serious bespectacled teenager (already wearing trendy glasses) to the elderly man in his cloth cap with a cigarette constantly in hand. It brings to mind the scrutiny of Rembrandt in his self-portraits.

Laura, Hockney’s mother, drawing from 1972

Hockney’s portraits of his mother Laura are tender, capturing her personality with love and affection over the years. She was a devout Methodist and a strict vegetarian but raised all four of her children with a generosity of spirit, supporting and encouraging the young David’s desire to be an artist.

Laura in old age

She was a loyal and devoted model who would always sit for him throughout her life. Their mutual affection is evident in each of his portraits.

We witness his constant changing style through the portraits of three of his closest friends, which date back from the 1960s to almost the present day, each one getting a dedicated room in the exhibition. His drawings of the textile designer Celia Birtwell stylishly record her beauty, often depicting her in glamorous dresses, gorgeously depicted in coloured pencils.

Celia Birtwell by David Hockney 1971

He shows his friend the curator Gregory Evans young, beautiful and nude like a Botticelli youth, yet also at times portraying him looking scared and vulnerable.

Gregory Evans

His drawings of Maurice Payne show him first as a young dandy, and then a beautiful man showing the ravages of time as the years pass, reminding each one of us we are getting older.

Maurice Payne, Charcoal on Paper, 2013

In the last set of portraits that were made over the last three years we see all three friends again as they are now, Gregory lounging in his track suit, Celia still with a twinkle in her eyes, Maurice just looking older.

Gregory, Acrylic on canvas, 2022

The exhibition is fresh and uplifting with drawing at its heart. One of my favourite parts is the video that shows just Hockney’s hand turning the pages of his latest sketchbooks from last year in Normandy, fresh and full of life and vitality. It’s a reminder to us all that although we can do nothing about the passage of time, we can still look at the world and life each day with curiosity and wonder.

I’m not sure my portrait of David Hockney deserves a place alongside this gallery of wonderful drawings but I will share it anyway. Sadly not drawn from life but painted from a photograph mixed up with a bit of my imagination. A tribute to one of my heroes.

David, Acrylic on board, by Gina Ferrari 2024