'Celia', David Hockney

Artwork details

Artist

David Hockney (born 1937)

Title

Celia

Date 1973

MediumLithograph on paper

Dimensionsimage: 1085 x 725 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Presented by Klaus Anschel in memory of his wife Gerty 1997

Reference

P11498

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Summary

This lithograph of Celia Birtwell, characterised by an elegance of line and subtlety of wash, is typical of the fine and tender portraits 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.

Hockney's portraits of Celia acknowledge her sensuality without being overtly sexual… (read more)