Page 45 - Studio International - January 1966

London Commentary

by Edward Lucie-Smith
England is a softer, more permissive country than with the idea of unreality, of things being distanced and
America ; at least, so far as the visual arts are concerned. cut off. The blanket-title which Hockney has chosen is
Everything in America seems to demand more of 'Pictures with frames, and still life pictures'. One
artists. They are forced to steel their faculties and meet technical device which is constantly in use is the
an implacable challenge. I was abruptly reminded of deliberate framing of the image, which doesn't occupy
this when I went to see David Hockney's new exhibition the whole canvas, but which is pushed back—away
at the Kasmin Gallery. The show marks a distinct from any real contact with the spectator. When
change of style. Until now, Hockney has always seemed Hockney parodies a smart Hollywood art-collection, as
a very English painter: the sensitive line was English, he does in a series of prints, the central image is
and so was the relaxed conversational ease with which deliberately thinned and diminished. What sings out,
the artist treated his subjects. Of course, like many loud and clear, is again the frame.
another British pop painter, Hockney has always had The 'still lifes' of the title are peculiar in a purposive
a nostalgia for the great American wonderland, for a way—they turn out to be a kind of parody of Cubism.
mythical country which was all pin-ups and pin- Grey cylindrical elements appear, and we suddenly
tables. He used to treat America as a kind of reservoir realise that they are a pile of tin cans. With all this there
of fantasy, full of luscious, improbable images. One goes a deliberate crudity of technique—lines are harsh
can see him exploring these feelings in the series of and heavy, the primary colours stand out brutally on
etchings called The Rake's Progress, which he pub- the unsized canvas. When Hockney paints a Hollywood
lished some time ago. swimming pool the water is represented by wriggling
These etchings were the product of a visit to New York. art-nouveau lines, in a convention which seems
They expressed the enraptured bewilderment of borrowed from woodcuts. All of this tends to align
somebody who was 'down there on a visit'. The Hockney with the brutalities of American pop, rather
paintings, drawings and prints in the new exhibition than with the lollipop English variety—the only English
are the product of a much longer residence in and painter whom he now resembles is Patrick Caulfield.
around Los Angeles, and as a greater commitment to The sardonic, humorless irony of the show makes
America itself. By comparing them to Hockney's earlier him seem a more impressive, if a less charming artist.
work, it's possible to see how astonishingly sensitive
he is to atmosphere. Chameleon-like, he has become
a Californian, and his art has taken on some of the
characteristics of the environment. There is the question
of the light, for example. It is usual to think of Hockney
as a maker of images, and not as a man who projects
himself into a landscape. Yet when he paints an
apartment block on Hollywood Boulevard, one is
suddenly reminded of the paintings made by
Diebenkorn of the suburbs round San Francisco. There
is the same quality of receding light—clear, pitiless and
unreal. Indeed, the whole show is very much taken up

David Hockney Right
Picture of the Rocky Mountains
An Apartment Block
on Sunset Boulevard 1965
with tired Indians 1965
Plastic paint on canvas
► Plastic paint on canvas
67 x 99 1/2 in. 42 x 24 in.
Kasmin Limited
Kasmin Limited