David Hockney, An Image of Celia 1984-6
© David Hockney 2010
Summary
This is one of numerous portraits of Celia Birtwell with which Hockney has celebrated his close friendship with the designer over the years. Celia first met Hockney in Los Angeles in 1964. She is most famously represented in Hockney's large double portrait Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1970-1 (Tate Gallery T01269). With her husband Ossie Clark she was at the top of the fashion industry in London in the 'Swinging Sixties'. Clark designed clothes using Birtwell's textile designs, and sold them from the shop Quorum in Chelsea's King's Road.
Made at a time when Hockney was experimenting with composite photographs, this complex, forty-two colour lithograph contains multiple representations of the sitter in an armchair and uses the strong primary colours which are typical of the artist's work of this period… (read more)
Other works of art you may be interested in
