This article focused on David Hockney’s painting, My Parents. In this work, Hockney was trying to distance himself from his earlier work by preoccupying himself more with method rather than content. The subjects of this painting are not his parents, as the title suggests. Their names are Chardin and Piero della Francesca. However, in the portrait of this elderly couple, Hockney seems to bring out the personalities his actual parents. Hockney's parents were strong-minded individuals, which rubbed off on their son. His mother was religious and a vegetarian, which was unusual at the time. His father, who died a year after this painting was done, was an anti-war campaigner and noted Bradford character who fiercely opposed smoking. In this painting, one gets the feeling that the subjects are nostalgic for a simpler, sparser and perhaps more moral world. David Hockney left his parents to pursue art, but perhaps this work of his is an attempt to bring them close again.
Lucie-Smith, Edward. "David Hockney." Lives of the Great 20th-Century Artists 2 Feb 2009
This article is a brief biography of David Hockney. He was born in Bradford, England in 1937. He began attending a local art school at the age of 16. Then, in 1959, he went to the Royal College of Art in London to continue his studies. His time in that college was full of discovery, both with his own homosexuality and with his style. He made his first major impact as a painter with the Young Contemporaries Exhibition of January 1961. Upon leaving school, Hockney was already quite successful. He moved to Los Angeles, and the lifestyle and landscapes there became important features of his work. Here he also found his lover and favorite model, Peter Schlesinger. He became interested in the full spectrum of art, and, not wanting to limit himself to painting, began to design sets for theater and experiment with Polaroid cameras. He continues to work with art and now lives in his house in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles.
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