Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy 1970-71

Theme, concept, intention

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy is a painting by David Hockney between 1970 and 1971. The characters in the painting are the fashion designer Ossie Clark (the husband), the textile designer Celia Birtwell (the wife) and their cat. It was painted shortly after their wedding in 1969 by David Hockney, who was best man in the wedding, also a good friend of the couple and sometimes lover of Ossie. Hockney has commented on this work that “my main aim was to paint the relationship of these two people”.

Hockney love painting portraits and they have been painted during different periods in his life. From 1968 and for the next few years he painted friends and lovers and relatives. Marriage seemed to be one of is favourite subjects, like he had painted imaginary couples in earlier paintings such as The First Marriage (A Marriage of Styles) in 1963 and My Parents in 1977.

The First Marriage (A Marriage of Styles) 1963

My Parents 1977

Hockney had an increasing fascination with a kind of Realism in his paintings of 1967-74, and this is one of them. His success in painting the world in the most conventional, Victorian Way was making him more and more famous and this move him toward a popular Victorian style, which climaxes in this double portrait, which is the most popular work in the Tate Gallery.

Form, medium, genre

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy was painted using acrylics on canvas and measures 305 by 213 cm (84 x 120 inches), thus making the subjects virtually life-size. They are portrayed in their home environment in a style which is both realistic and highly simplified. It is the painting that comes closest to naturalism, according to Hockney.

Background of the artist and the art work

David Hockney was born in 1937 in Yorkshire, England during the Second World War. He is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer.

Hockney is openly gay, and unlike Andy Warhol, whom he befriended early on, he openly explored the nature of gay love in his art work. He was fascinated about Picasso and Cubism.

Hockney and Ossie Clark, the husband in Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, had been friends since the early 1960s. Both of them studied at the Royal College of Art in London. He painted them in their flat in Notting Hill Gate, west London, an area where the artist and a number of his friends then lived. Hockney chose to paint them in their bedroom because he liked the light there.

Mr and Mrs Clark, and their cat.

Process of making the art work

Hockney took photographs, made life observation and drawings of it. He began to make drawings and take photographs for the painting in 1969 and began working on the canvas in the spring of 1970, completing the painting in early 1971. The painting took him years to complete. The following video shows how Hockney worked on this painting.

Reference to the art history

Both the symbolism and composition in The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck and A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth can be seen on the painting.

A copy of Hockney's version of A Rake's Progress is seen on the wall. The positions of the two figures are reversed from the Arnolfini Portrait with the implication that Birtwell is the dominant partner. The lilies near Birtwell, a symbol of female purity are also associated with depictions of the Annunciation (at the time of the portrait Birtwell was pregnant). The cat on Clark's lap is a symbol of infidelity and envy. Ironically, the marriage really lasted for a few years only, ended in 1974 as Birtwell could no longer put up with Clark’s wild-partying, drug-taking and his affairs with both men and women.

Experience of the art work

SOURCES:
Stephanie Barron, Maurice Tuchman, David Hockney: A Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Tate Gallery, London 1988
http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/tag/david-hockney/
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-mr-and-mrs-clark-and-percy-t01269/text-summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_and_Mrs_Clark_and_Percy

My Chosen Artist

I'm going to write about an English artist, David Hockney, in my final art review.

David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. He is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire andKensington, London. Hockney also maintains two residences in Los Angeles, one in Nicholas Canyon as well as an office and archives on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, the city where he has lived on and off for more than 30 years.

He is an important contributor to the Pop art movement of the 1960s and is considered to be one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century.

SOURCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=David_Hockney

John Young: The Macau Days@10 Chancery Lane Gallery

On 6th October, I visited a very impressive exhibition, John Young: The Macau Days. It was exhibited at the 10 Chancery Lane Gallery in Central.

The Gallery was situated in between a bunch of old buildings, which made this new and bright little house very eye-catching. I was attracted by the simple yet comfortable outlook of it. There was a black-and-white portrait of the artist, John Young, placed at the center of the display window, then nothing else. I do love this simple and clear placement of the whole outlook of this little house.

After I have gone inside the gallery, this art piece is the very first one that caught my eyes.

It is called The Macau Days, which is used to be the name of the exhibition also. It contains 15 works in the art piece: 8 of them are photographs, and 7 of them are only with words on it. The photos were digital prints on photographic paper, while the ones with words are made by using chalk to write on blackboard then paint on paper. Each of the work in this art piece are 100 x 70 cm.

I was amazed by it. First of all, I feel myself quite tiny when standing in front of this art piece as it is huge, where the top of it was near the roof of the galley and it is almost the doubled size of the other art pieces. To me, black-and-white photos are stunning. In this art piece, the black-and-white photos are suitably being put together with the "blackboards", which I think is match very well.

On the photos there are different symbolic scenes and things of Macau, including The Ruins of St. Paul's, temples, foreign sailors and even the first casino in Macau. 5 of the photos used the technique of double exposure which, to me, makes them contain more meaning. The "words on blackbord" are passages from Chinese painter and poet Wu Li and a Portuguese Writer, Wenceslau de Moraes. Wu Li was one of the first three Chinese Catholic priests, while Wenceslau de Moraes has spent several years in Macau before moving to Japan. The words from them are also realted to some symbolic things or characters of Macau, like Mazu.

John Young was born in Hong Kong and moved to Australia in 1967. He is deeply interested in those lives that cross countries, cultures and histories. This piece of art work and also the others in this exhibition, was his homage to the myths and memories that affect the lives of the Portuguese, Macanese and Chinese. Both the photos and words on The Macau Days are beautiful and vaulable records of those memories that should not be forgot.