My painting for myself

One of the most popular and successful living British artists, Hockney, as well as painting portrait and figure subjects, has produced numerous prints, book illustrations and stage designs. He was a leading light in the Pop Art movement with its representations of popular culture. Stylistically, his work has changed considerably since that time, becoming less scratchy and much more formal and slick. In 1962 Hockney had been a brilliant student at the Royal College of Art,but his refusal to produce a life painting meant that he could not be awarded his final diploma. He was persuaded to conform, however, and created a huge male figure resembling the muscled posers in health and fitness magazines. As a sort of 'personal antidote' to this he painted Life Painting for Myself, a study of his friend Mo McDermott, which questions conventional, realistic life drawing. Mo is posed both sitting and standing; on the right his clothes are just appearing. When the painting was drying somebody scrawled 'don't give up yet?' in the corner which Hockney decided to leave as part of the image. Perhaps fellow students agreed that there was more to painting than producing realistic figures!