HOCKNEY, DAVID (British, b. 1937)

David Hockney studied at the Bradford College of Art (1953-57). He had already acquired a national reputation by the time he left the Royal College of Art with the gold medal for his year in 1962. From his first one-man show in 1963 at the Kasmin Gallery, London, Hockney has gone on to become the most widely acclaimed British artist born in this century.
When in 1963, Hockney discovered Southern California in 1963, he realised that he was uniquely suited to capture pictorially the idyllic vision of carefree existence that Americans associated with that place and time. Although Hockney moved back to England in 1967, his paintings dating the late 1960s and 1970s continued to reveal and define a way of life that is distinctly American.
Since 1974 Hockney has designed sets and costumes for a number of opera productions including Glyndebourne and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Although he has long distanced himself from Pop Art, preferring to cite Picasso as his greatest inspiration, he has continued to pursue a line of investigation particularly associated with the movement.
Since 1979 he has again made Los Angeles his main home.
Hockney has been the subject of countless solo exhibitions worldwide including a major touring retrospective held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Tate Gallery, London in 1988. During 1997-1998 a major retrospective of his photo works was shown at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin.

Public collections include:
Art Institute of Chicago
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Tate, London                                
Victoria & Albert Museum, London