David Hockney was born on July 9, 1937 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. He is an acclaimed English painter and an important patron of the Pop Art movement.

David Hockney was born in a working class family to Kenneth and Laura Hockney. During his studies at the Royal College of Art in London, Hockney took part in the Young Contemporaries exhibition along with Peter Blake and was associated with the British Pop Art movement. He completed his graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1962 with a gold medal. His early representation of the homosexual theme came in the form of the oil on canvas painting, “We Two Boys Together Clinging” (1961). It featured written passages which along with the title, were taken from the poem by Walt Whitman.

Hockney visited New York in 1963 and had the opportunity to meet artists such as Andy Warhol and Dennis Hopper. But his real obsession was California, where he believed he would be greeted by the sunny atmosphere and carefree lifestyle. He stayed in Santa Monica, and shifted from oil to acrylic paints to create his art on canvas. His obsession with the body of the young man is evident in his painting “Man in Shower in Beverly Hills” (1964). In 1967 David Hockney took part in the John Moores exhibition held in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and won a prize for his painting “Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool” (1966).

In the 1970s David Hockney concentrated more on naturalistic portrayal of his subjects. His first retrospective exhibition was held at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery and later at Hanover, Rotterdam and Belgrade. He completed his portrait collection “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy” in 1971. He also created naturalistic pen and ink portraits such as “Nick and Henry on Board, Nice to Calvi” (1972). He submitted four acrylic on canvas paintings entitled ‘New Spirit in Painting’, for a figurative art exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in 1981. He also worked on a series of self-portraits in acrylics in 1983. Hockney’s desire to experiment was revealed in the painting collection begun in 1992, “Very New Paintings”; these canvases depicted abstract views of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Hockney is also known for his obsession with technology, most evident when he used a laser copier to create images in some of his paintings and also replicate some of them in the 1990s.

Some of the other pop art canvas creations of David Hockney include “Pool With Two Figures” (1971), “A Bigger Splash” (1967), “Fruit In A Bowl” (1986), “A Lawn Being Sprinkled” (1967), “Pearblossom” (1986) and “Malibu” (1983).

Apart from being a painter, Hockney has proven his genius as a photographer, stage and costume designer, actor and writer. In 1997 he was made the Companion of Honour (CH), and Academician (RA) of the London Royal Academy of Arts. Along with the other big names of the pop art movement such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney has made a significant contribution as a Pop Art artist and proven his versatility, with each Art Canvas he produces continuing to influence artists of the present century.

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