Hockney portraits

Hockney.D Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy 1970-71

Throughout his career David Hockney has produced many portraits and figurative work using many diverse methods and styles. I find his work really interesting as he seems to be forever experimenting and discovering new ways to produce new imagery.

His portrait paintings played an increasingly dominant role in his career . His early iconic double portraits are particularly interesting as he was more concerned with portraying the relationship between the two people he was painting. Hockney's friend, Marco Livingstone, the subject of several portraits and the author of the essay in the Encounters catalogue7 wrote 'Sitting for Hockney', in David Hockney: Painting on Paper (2003). In it, he reveals many of the artist's motives and methods:
In every case, no matter what the relationship, Hockney was interested in capturing not just the appearance of the sitters but something of their psychology and their interaction with each other. This, he soon discovered, was most visible from their body language: whether they acknowledged each other's presence from the way they sat or seemed to exist in separate spheres; whether they touched or at least approached each other, or seemed on the other hand to be recoiling; whether they seemed at ease and affectionate or tense and mistrustful. 1

Another characteristic of Hockney's portraiture is the manner in which he has used the same sitters over many decades. Celia Birtwell has remained one of Hockney's closest friends. She is one of the few women to be painted and drawn by Hockney. He describes her thus:
Celia has a beautiful face, a very rare face with lots of things in it which appeal to me. It shows aspects of her, like her intuitive knowledge and her kindness, which I think is the greatest virtue. To me she's such a special person … Portraits aren't just made up of drawing, they are made up of other insights as well. Celia is one of the few girls I know really well. I've drawn her so many times and knowing her makes it always slightly different. I don't bother getting the likeness in her face because I know it so well. She has many faces and I think if you looked through all the drawings I've done of her, you'd see that they don't look alike.2

1.Livingstone M.Sitting fot Hockney. In:David Hockney:Painting on Paper. London: Annely Juda Fine Art,2003.

2.Notes on Sitters. In: Howgate S, Shapiro BS, Glazebrook M, WhiteE, Livingstone M. David Hockney portraits. National portrait gallery, London, 2006: 222

Peter Blake fairy paintings.

Blake. P Flora Fairy Child 1977

I have recently seen a series of fairy paintings by Peter Blake that he created during his Ruralist period. These paintings are very inspirational and very unique in that his fairies are firmly rooted in the present, they are very real people painted as fairies, and not mythical creatures who exist only in the imagination. The painting, Flora is a painting taken from a photograph of a model named Florence, she is painted with a wreath of flowers round her head and its such a beautiful evocative image. She looks very much like a magazine model with her made up eyes and pouting lips but by adding a wreath of flowers the meaning of the image becomes completely different she becomes the picture of innocence almost like an earth goddess. The whole picture plane is filled completely with the portrait, there is no background and the image stares directly out at the viewer. Its a lovely painting.

studies for portrait

I have decided to paint a portrait of my daughter, so I have experimented with different head positions. The first image is more of the positon that I will paint but the skin is too pale and the face is far too stern at the moment. i want to try and get a softness to the finished painting, but I have more of an idea of the composition. I think I will also paint this portrait in oils as I have not yet worked in oil paint and I would like to be able to get used to working in both acrylic and oil, I also love the blending quality of oil paint.

sketchbook portraits

This project is taking too long for me its a combination of too many things going on, and maybe still a reluctance to paint this portrait. I actually think that there is almost a fear or anxiety attached to this project and its holding my progress back. I have however completed some quick watercolour sketches in my sketch book.


John Berger
The art critic John Berger made a series of programmes in the 1970 s that was critical of the art world and its collaboration with the wealthy. He made many far reaching comments that were at the time considered shocking to the art world, but as time has gone by his views have become more accepted. His views on the portrayal of the female nude are really thought provoking. He claimed that the majority of paintings were painted in such a way as to be not far short of soft porn . Hence portrating that female beauty is about being passive and available. Maybe his views are slightly blunt, but it has to be taken on board that men hold the majority within the art world.
The artist Jenny Saville has taken the challenge of the portrayal of female nudes within contemporary society and they are painted in such a way that although "traditionally" they would not be considered as beautiful . She has painted large nudes, that fill the whole canvas and look out with a kind of arrogance. She paints the skin with large purposefull brushstrokes, which often appears bruised. The images aren't soft and gentle they often appear severe and even angry looking. But they are still beautiful in an unconventional way . I really love the work of Jenny Saville it is bold and she is really not afraid to tackle subjects that most people would avoid. She has painted a transvestite who has both penis and silicone breasts. In this link here http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/jenny_saville.htm she talks about her work .

Redon,O. Portrait of violette Heymann. 1910.

My research for this project has drawn me to an artist that I was enthralled with a few years ago when I went to visit the galleries in Paris. The artist Odilon Redon, again I find myself being inspired by an artist who creates mythical and magical images sometimes of a nightmarish quality.
The majority of his portraits seem to be painted from the side, and they have a lovely soft, magical feel to them,which gives them a dreamlike quality.
In researching portraits I have just read an argument from the photographic historian,John Tagg who argues that during the nineteenth century the head on stare in photographs was sometimes taken as a sign of the "bluntness and "naturalness" of a culturally unsophisticated class",in contrast to side on poses, which were associated with people higher up in the social hierarchy.(1).


(1) John Tagg, The Burden of Representation: essays on photographies and Histories, Basingstoke and London, Macmillan,1988,pp.36-7.