David Hockney: Works on Paper, 1961 - 2009

Hockney’s interest in landscape and nature’s cycles was ignited in recent years after returning in 1999 to East Yorkshire, England a lush area near his hometown of Bradford. In composing his landscapes, Hockney would continuously return to the same location in order to capture the gradual changes of seasons across a range of media. The exhibition will feature four charcoal on paper works including Hockney’s Autumn Thixendale, October 19th, 2008, and Fresh Timber on Woldgate, 2008, that emphasize the soft, organic forms of the foliage in play with the seasonal weather, flanked against stark farming patterns of the Yorkshire countryside.

Created at the outset of his career, Hockney’s drawings from the 1960s and 70s capture the development of what would become his iconic and inventive style, often reflecting on his travels and friends of the moment.  In Kasmin,1973, Hockney uses pencil on paper to depict his art dealer seated in a Parisian studio that once belonged to Balthus.  This work was made at a time when Hockney “was trying to break out of something…of what [he] called ‘obsessive naturalism.”   Executed years later, Peter Langan, 1981, is a compelling example of Hockney’s portraiture, made with the most economical of marks and clever for the innovative approach to scale with respect to the head within the composition.

The exhibition will coincide with the major retrospective, David Hockney, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which had staged earlier this year at the Tate Britain, London and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

DAVID HOCKNEY (b.  1937, Bradford, England) is a pioneer of the British Pop Art movement and one of the most influential living artists today. The artist is universally recognized for his singular aesthetic developed through a myriad of media, including photographic collages, opera staging, paintings, and drawings using materials ranging from pencil to iPad. Paul Kasmin Gallery presented its first exhibition of David Hockney's work in 2015, which featured a selection of the artist's early drawings. The artist currently lives and works in Los Angeles and East Yorkshire, England.