\paperw4800 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 British painter.\par
Hockney trained at Bradford Art College, going on to study at the Royal College of Art, where he became friends with
Jasper Johns and Ronald Kitaj, two of the founders of British Pop Art, of which Hockney himself became a leading exponent. In 1961 he won the Guinness Prize for engraving and visited New York, which left a deep mark on him. The following year he spent
time in Berlin and traveled in Egypt, doing a series of illustrations for the \i Sunday Times\i0 . In 1963 he taught at the American universities of Iowa, Colorado and California. He is one of the most influential representatives of the British figurat
ive school. His early work was characterized by a deliberately clumsy and na∩ve style, which led to the simplified realism of his later years, in which he has shown a preference for still lifes, landscapes and scenes of daily life in London and Los Ange
les. His ôdomestic interiorsö use images taken from popular magazines, mixed with graffiti, lettering and childish scribbles. HockneyÆs figures are placed in aseptic settings and seem to regard their surroundings with amused detachment, as is apparent
in pictures like the \i Wedding Night\i0 (1962) and \i Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy\i0 (1970-71), both in the Tate Gallery in London. One of the painterÆs favorite subjects is the Californian swimming pool, which appears in pictures like \i A Bigger S
plash\i0 (Tate Gallery, London). In his graphic work he shows a preference for classical portraits, like \i Henry Geldzahler\i0 \i Reading\i0 (1973, private collection, London), associated with the use of photographs. In 1970 the Whitechapel Gallery
in London and in 1974 the MusΘe des Arts DΘcoratifs in Paris devoted significant retrospectives to HockneyÆs work. In recent years the artist has developed a strong interest in theater and photography: his assemblies of various shots taken from slightl
y varied angles create images that combine different points of view.
