Hockney & the healing powers of art

Listening to an interview with Hockney on Radio 4 got me thinking, it's not just about the paintings, or the artist, but the memories and experiences you have with them over time.

(By the way, can't wait for the retrospective this year. The RA does have unmissable shows, even if it's full of pushy, posh old ladies with sharp elbows and always too packed to see the work properly. I am lucky enough to have a friend who works there and wafts me past the queues - the queue for the Degas exhibition this year stretched right across the courtyard all the way back to Piccadilly. She just walked me straight in.)

He is a great artist who seems to have also led a great life. And deservedly so, he seems like a lovely man. He's done it all, lived a life of full on hedonism in California, reinvented and innovated his technique constantly, escaped the closet and the trap of a small town to go to art school in London and be himself, had passionate affairs, including a platonic affair with his best mate's wife and muse (who he is still close friends with today, this is the sign of a nice loyal man) been close to his family and returned to his roots in the later years. He's like the anti-Lucien Freud. I know Freud was a genius. He was probably the best painter we've ever had. But I'd rather have a Hockney on my wall. (I did have Pear Tree Drive on my wall for a long time.)




Pear Tree Drive, one of his famous polaroid pictures.






He's done it all, he's a beautiful draughtsman, he's done pop art, printmaking, theatre design, photography, portraiture, he's written art history books. He's not afraid to use new technology. I can't wait to see these huge landscape pictures in the retrospective. Most of all, he's extravagantly gifted, but unlike some he's led a life as an artist full of acclaim and followed his own desires and made a success of it. He hasn't had to lose out on relationships or making a living through pursuing art. Lucky, lucky, lucky bastard.

Anyway, one reason I'm so fond of him is because of the memories I associate with the art. We used to always visit Mr & Mrs Clark and Percy in the Tate, though I wasn't ever sure I liked it, but it had a definite atmosphere & prescence (now I think I didn't like it because actually there is tension inbuilt into the picture, I was just too young to trust my instincts.)











There used to be a great shop in Neal Street called the Postcard Shop, this was the beginning of an education in art history.
Postcards were stacked in little alphabetical pigeon holes, you could buy postcards of every artist, we used to buy all the Hockney Californian swimming pools and pin them up in our teenage bedrooms and dream of living in a different, glamorous climate.











And later on he was part of our twentieth century history of art A level syllabus. But mostly the memories are of a trip to his gallery in Saltaire.

Once we went on a roadtrip to visit our friends in Leeds. I was ill with the worst cough in the world that refused to go and Emily was in the midst of major depression. She'd just moved in with me from having been in a semi-squat (they'd paid rent to a shadowy landlord but it was in a kind of warehouse with no heating, no interior walls and no front door - they'd had to climb in through the window.) Her flatmate had skipped out without paying his half of the rent and she'd had to do a moonlight flit. When she'd moved in with me to a place with central heating and an actual front door, it was like she'd been able to let her guard down and the depression had landed on her. I remember the trip to our friends in Leeds as being a healing one. I think she felt better just by being with friends who knew how she was feeling and didn't judge. We just sat around with Em and Sean and ate and played with the cats and went on healthy country walks.










We did a day trip to Whitby for fish and chips and one day when Em was at work, Sean drove us to Saltaire. I was taking a strong cough medicine and Sean, it turned out, was a maniacal driver.



On the way to Saltaire. Hockney did a painting of this very road.






By the time we arrived I had to spend 10 minutes hoicking up the cough medicine in the carpark whilst Emily patted my back and held my hair out the way. But Saltaire was a beautiful place, and the Hockney museum was fabulous.












Here is a picture of us in the museum cafe, Salt's Diner. The menu has a picture Hockney drew of his little dachshund on it.






By the end of the week she was on the mend. I think the healing powers of art might have helped too. I'll always remember this trip.