Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, by whom gifted to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

David Hockney arrived in London in September 1959 to study at the Royal College of Art. Hockney rapidly absorbed and adopted the dominant aesthetic of the day; of this period he recalls 'The idea of French painting disappeared really, and American abstract expressionism was the great influence. So I tried my hand at it, I did a few pictures, about twenty on three feet by four feet pieces of hardboard that where based on a kind of mixture of Alan Davie, cum Jackson Pollock cum Roger Hilton. And I did them for a while, and then I couldn't. It was too barren for me' (David Hockney, My Early Years, Thames & Hudson, London, 1988, p.41).

Arguably, the pivotal moment for Hockney came when he introduced to this abstract painting symbolic imagery and most significantly text. Aged eleven he had watched with fascination as his father occasionally took work as a sign and poster painter. The memory of observing the careful painting of vibrant words had an impact on the young Hockney and now he would begin to introduce words into his pictures. He comments 'I assume people are always inquisitive and nosy, and if you see a little poem written in the corner of a painting it will force you to go up and look at it. And so then the painting becomes something a little different ...when you see the painting you can see it's not totally preoccupied with content because the paint itself is interesting...But it also contains pointers which have to do with content' (op.cit p.44). The great majority of Hockney's works from mid 1960 through to 1963 include phrases, words and numbers in various scrawl, block or print fonts. These were almost always appropriated from poetry, literature, household consumables, media and even the graffiti sprawled across the lavatory walls of the Earl's Court Underground station. These appropriations were often employed in order to refer obliquely to, amongst other themes, the artist's homosexuality.

Some of the most emotive employments of language came by way of literature, most prominently Walt Whitman whose work gave rise to Adhesiveness (1960), We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961) and The Love Painting series (1960-61). On occasion, Hockney would also borrow the words of C.P. Cavafy and in the case of present work William Blake. The single word in the present oil, is from Blake's famous 1794 poem The Tyger. It may well be that Blake's meditation of how humanity should handle the beast within appealed to Hockney's sensibility at this period.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?