David Hockney’s “Self-Portrait with Charlie” at National Portrait Gallery
David Hockney
oil on canvas, 2005
72 in. x 36 in. (1829 mm x 914 mm)
Purchased with help from the proceeds of the 150th anniversary gala, 2007
National Portrait Gallery, London
Boys on film
by Charlie Scheips published at NEWSTATEMAN
David Hockney has taken a break from painting to select a show of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. He talks to Charlie Scheips about his old friend and their shared interest
David Hockney, one of the most popular and influential living artists, takes a keen interest in how his own work has been presented in the hundreds of exhibitions and dozens of books that have documented his 45-year career. And now he has put on a new hat – that of curator – in an exhibition of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe at the Alison Jacques Gallery in London.
Jacques invited Hockney to curate the show after the artists Cindy Sherman and Catherine Opie curated Mapplethorpe exhibitions for galleries in New York and Los Angeles in 2003 and 2004. “I read an interview Hockney did on Andy Warhol’s stitched photographs and thought to myself how brilliant it would be to have David’s eye on Mapplethorpe,” says Jacques. Sherman and Opie never knew Mapplethorpe, but Hockney did. They were introduced by a mutual friend in New York in 1970. Back then, Mapplethorpe was living with the rock artist Patti Smith, and he was making sculpture. Hockney recalls: “I made a drawing of Robert and he gave me a Polaroid of a male nude.” They were never very close, but saw each other from time to time until Mapplethorpe’s death from Aids in 1989. “I lost an entire group of my friends to Aids – it was an incredible loss,” says Hockney. “New York would be a different place today if all the talented artists like Robert hadn’t been taken from us.” read more
Guy Bourdin: Extreme Fashion Photography
The work of one of fashion’s most notorious, controversial photographers – Guy Bourdin – is exhibited in a one-off collection of over 40 works at London’s Bloomsbury Square until November 24 2007. Having shot campaigns for Chanel, Ungaro, Loewe and Charles Jourdan, Bourdin made a name for himself with the erotic, sometimes morbid images he projected onto the pages of British and French Vogue. Watch as Bourdin expert Charlie Scheips guides us around the photographer’s most iconic images and hear Bourdin’s son, Samuel, talk about his all-time favourite photo in a rare interview.
National Portrait Gallery buys Hockney portrait
NPG buys Hockney portrait
Martin Wainwright
Friday September 28,2007
David Hockney Portraits exhibition and funds from its 150th Anniversary Gala
A large recent self-portrait by David Hockney has been bought by the National Portrait Gallery from funds raised last year through its 150th Anniversary Portrait Gala and gift aid donations from tickets sold to visitors of its highly successful David Hockney Portraits exhibition. It will go on display alongside a selection of other recent acquisitions to coincide with the opening of the Gallery’s major autumn exhibition Pop Art Portraits on 11 October.
While the Gallery has an excellent collection of photographs of Hockney, and a fine self-portrait drawing and etching, this will be its first painted portrait by the Yorkshire-born artist. The work in oil on canvas from 2005 shows the artist with his friend and former assistant, the New York-based curator, Charlie Scheips. Hockney stands in the foreground in front of a canvas wearing a black shirt and red braces and holding paintbrushes while Scheips sits on a table at the back scrutinising work in progress. read more
NPG – Buys First David Hockney Painting
Thursday 27 September
VISITORS HELP BUY NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY ITS FIRST PAINTING BY
DAVID HOCKNEY
National Portrait Gallery acquires Hockney’s Self-portrait with Charlie with Gift Aid from tickets sold at its David Hockney Portraits exhibition and funds from its 150th Anniversary Gala.
A large recent self-portrait by David Hockney has been bought by the National Portrait Gallery from funds raised last year through its 150th Anniversary Portrait Gala and gift aid donations from tickets sold to visitors of its highly successful David Hockney Portraits exhibition. It will go on display alongside a selection of other recent acquisitions to coincide with the opening of the Gallery’s major autumn exhibition Pop Art Portraits on 11 October.
While the Gallery has an excellent collection of photographs of Hockney, and a fine self-portrait drawing and etching, this will be its first painted portrait by the Yorkshire-born artist. The work in oil on canvas from 2005 shows the artist with his friend and former assistant, the New York-based curator, Charlie Scheips. Hockney stands in the foreground in front of a canvas wearing a black shirt and red braces and holding paintbrushes while Scheips sits on a table at the back scrutinising work in progress.
Exploring his fascination with mirrors and the artist-and-model theme, the portrait echoes the psychological intensity of Hockney’s famous double portraits of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This time, however, the painting shows a triangular exchange of gazes between the artist, the model who – perhaps unnervingly from behind – observes the painting unfold and, ultimately, the viewer. read more