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Lot Essay
'There were no paintings of Los Angeles, people didn't even know what it looked like. I remember seeing, within the first week, the ramp of a freeway going into the air and I suddenly thought: My God, this place needs its Piranesi; Los Angeles could have its Piranesi, so here I am!' David Hockney
Held in the same private collection since 1971, the present work marks one of the earliest depictions of David Hockney’s exotic and hedonistic place of fantasy: Los Angeles. Rendered in a vivid palette of contrasting colours, Los Angeles (1964) presents us with a quintessential Californian backyard, a sleek modern home appearing in the background of its sun-drenched patio. Against a large swath of virgin paper, two blue sun loungers appear, their floating forms lending them the appearance of flat paper cut-outs. The cloudless sky, also rendered in rich cobalt blue, floods the scene with glorious daylight, its dazzling rays bouncing off the sun shade beneath it. At its centre, a faint rectangular form suggests the presence of a swimming pool, an implication furthered by the abandoned yellow towel to its left. Behind this, we notice what appears to be a film director’s chair, a device suggesting the context of a Hollywood Hills mansion. A splendid vista of West Coast luxury, Los Angeles is a glorious early depiction of the idealistic, sun-drenched landscapes that would come to lie at the core of David Hockney’s oeuvre.
Travelling to California for the first time in 1964, and setting up a studio there that same year, Hockney became intoxicated by the city of Los Angeles, embarking on what would become the most significant period of his career. Inspired by the glorious sunshine, vibrant landscape, and heady optimism of the West Coast—features which greatly contrasted with his gloomy hometown in the North of England—Hockney began to meticulously document his surroundings, his pictures becoming increasingly populated by the swimming pools, showers, and plush interiors dotted around the city. ‘Within a week of arriving there in this strange big city,’ Hockney recalls, ‘not knowing a soul, I’d passed the driving test, bought a car, driven to Las Vegas and won some money, got myself a studio, started painting, all in a week. And I thought, it’s just how I imagined it would be’ (D. Hockney in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney by David Hockney, London 1976, p. 97). Settling there permanently in 1967, the year he created his seminal A Bigger Splash (1967, Tate, London), Hockney’s hedonistic home in the Golden State provided the inspiration for some of his greatest masterpieces. In Los Angeles, we are presented with a product of Hockney’s wide-eyed infatuation, its depiction of the city’s commonplace clichés a homage to his new exotic climate.
Hockney’s first depiction of Los Angeles was in the seminal painting Plastic Tree Plus City Hall (1964), a work in which he depicts an artificial palm tree in front of a clouded sky, the City Hall skyscraper featuring in the background. Defined by its reductive pictorial language, this painting marked the first in a series to depict the modernist buildings and artificially manicured gardens of California, their sleek, pared-back forms providing the ultimate outlet for the modernist techniques he was also developing in the mid-1960s. In its flat, stylised composition, the present work provides a poignant example of Hockney’s rich dialogue with modernism, its vividly coloured, cut-out shapes recalling Henri Matisse’s Memory of Oceania (1952-1953). Indeed, Los Angeles marks a pivotal moment in the artist’s practice, showcasing an early fascination with both his new techniques and newfound place of fantasy.
Held in the same private collection since 1971, the present work marks one of the earliest depictions of David Hockney’s exotic and hedonistic place of fantasy: Los Angeles. Rendered in a vivid palette of contrasting colours, Los Angeles (1964) presents us with a quintessential Californian backyard, a sleek modern home appearing in the background of its sun-drenched patio. Against a large swath of virgin paper, two blue sun loungers appear, their floating forms lending them the appearance of flat paper cut-outs. The cloudless sky, also rendered in rich cobalt blue, floods the scene with glorious daylight, its dazzling rays bouncing off the sun shade beneath it. At its centre, a faint rectangular form suggests the presence of a swimming pool, an implication furthered by the abandoned yellow towel to its left. Behind this, we notice what appears to be a film director’s chair, a device suggesting the context of a Hollywood Hills mansion. A splendid vista of West Coast luxury, Los Angeles is a glorious early depiction of the idealistic, sun-drenched landscapes that would come to lie at the core of David Hockney’s oeuvre.
Travelling to California for the first time in 1964, and setting up a studio there that same year, Hockney became intoxicated by the city of Los Angeles, embarking on what would become the most significant period of his career. Inspired by the glorious sunshine, vibrant landscape, and heady optimism of the West Coast—features which greatly contrasted with his gloomy hometown in the North of England—Hockney began to meticulously document his surroundings, his pictures becoming increasingly populated by the swimming pools, showers, and plush interiors dotted around the city. ‘Within a week of arriving there in this strange big city,’ Hockney recalls, ‘not knowing a soul, I’d passed the driving test, bought a car, driven to Las Vegas and won some money, got myself a studio, started painting, all in a week. And I thought, it’s just how I imagined it would be’ (D. Hockney in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney by David Hockney, London 1976, p. 97). Settling there permanently in 1967, the year he created his seminal A Bigger Splash (1967, Tate, London), Hockney’s hedonistic home in the Golden State provided the inspiration for some of his greatest masterpieces. In Los Angeles, we are presented with a product of Hockney’s wide-eyed infatuation, its depiction of the city’s commonplace clichés a homage to his new exotic climate.
Hockney’s first depiction of Los Angeles was in the seminal painting Plastic Tree Plus City Hall (1964), a work in which he depicts an artificial palm tree in front of a clouded sky, the City Hall skyscraper featuring in the background. Defined by its reductive pictorial language, this painting marked the first in a series to depict the modernist buildings and artificially manicured gardens of California, their sleek, pared-back forms providing the ultimate outlet for the modernist techniques he was also developing in the mid-1960s. In its flat, stylised composition, the present work provides a poignant example of Hockney’s rich dialogue with modernism, its vividly coloured, cut-out shapes recalling Henri Matisse’s Memory of Oceania (1952-1953). Indeed, Los Angeles marks a pivotal moment in the artist’s practice, showcasing an early fascination with both his new techniques and newfound place of fantasy.