The Three David Hockneys

The three David Hockneys - TLS Highlights - Times Online:

There are three David Hockneys, I think, and only one of them matters. The first one, and the least important, although the most intrusive, is the public, much-photographed David Hockney – the 1960s owlishly bespectacled mop-top turned twenty-first-century curmudgeon, the one who writes letters to the newspapers about smokers’ freedoms and what the modern world is coming to. The second Hockney, more difficult to put aside, is the David Hockney of “A Bigger Splash” and “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy” – not the paintings themselves, but the postcard and poster reproductions. This Hockney is troublesome, because he stands in the way of the real David Hockney – and more worryingly, he stands in the way of a clear view of the real Hockney’s work.