David Hockney

Summary

This lithograph of Celia Birtwell is one of numerous portraits with which Hockney has celebrated his close friendship with the designer over the years. Celia first met Hockney in Los Angeles in 1964. 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. The couple are most famously represented in Hockney's large double portrait Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1970-1 (Tate Gallery T01269). By the mid-1980s, Hockney was moving away from naturalism, drawing inspiration from early modern artists in his use of brighter colours and looser modelling.

Further reading:
David Hockney: A Retrospective, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 1988

Terry Riggs
December 1997

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