Life of David Hockney

by Catherine Cusset

  They moved into an apartment that was much nicer than the run-down studio on Pico Boulevard. On the top floor, it looked out onto the ocean, was near the house where Peter, in the fall, had rented a room that David now used as a studio, and was a five-minute walk from the charming Spanish-style house where his best friends, Christopher and Don, lived and entertained. When they stepped out onto their balcony in the morning, they were immersed in the mist rising from the ocean and they had the impression that they were on the deck of the Queen Mary, in the middle of the Atlantic. David was planning to paint a large portrait of Christopher and Don. It wasn’t a fashionable genre. He would surely be called retrograde. But he felt like doing it, and that was his definition of freedom: to escape from established ideas, shatter the expectations of others, break his own habits and his way of thinking. He never forgot the excellent advice of Ron Kitaj, his friend from the Royal College whom he saw fairly often, since Ron was spending the semester at Berkeley and came to visit him in L.A.: “Paint what matters to you.”

  Christopher Isherwood, novelist and screenwriter, mattered a lot to him. He was his closest friend in Los Angeles, even though Christopher, born in 1904, was much older. Like David, he was from the north of England (but from a higher social class), and had chosen to live in California for the same reasons: he loved the sun and the beautiful boys, and couldn’t stand the prejudices of his homeland. His partner, Don, a painter David’s age, wasn’t yet eighteen when Christopher had met him on a beach in Santa Monica in 1954. David was intrigued by their great age difference and fascinated by their love story. They were the first long-term gay couple he had met. He wished for only one thing: to grow old one day with Peter the way Christopher had with Don. He wouldn’t be painting their portrait; rather, he would be painting his dream.

  He spent weeks drawing their faces. They posed in David’s studio, and every time he told them to relax and forget he was there, Christopher crossed his legs, putting his left foot on his right knee, and looked at Don, while Don looked at David: the pose created itself. After Don left for London, where he was planning to spend some time, David continued to paint Christopher and saw him every day. Christopher told him about his life—rather his lives, because he had had several. After dropping out of school in Cambridge, he had left England at the age of twenty, lived in Berlin under the Weimar Republic—where his passion for a German man had inspired his most famous novel, Goodbye to Berlin—emigrated to the United States in 1939 with his friend, the poet W. H. Auden, then became a Buddhist and a Quaker before meeting Don on a beach in Santa Monica and settling down in California.

  David knew of no one more free. But he saw Christopher devastated the day Don told him he was delaying his return from London. Though he feared losing his young lover, who was having a fling with another man, he was able to say to David: “Don’t be too possessive of your friends, David. Let them be free.” While he sympathized, David couldn’t relate. Peter and he had only one desire: to be together.

  The portrait is intimate and monumental. In the foreground there is a coffee table on which David arranged a few objects, piled-up books, a bowl of apples and bananas that brings a single touch of warm colors to the painting that is primarily blue, and an ear of dried corn whose symbolic shape seems to be a wink. The huge window in the top part of the canvas gives a sense of space, and David painted the closed interior shutters that turquoise blue that is the color of pools, the ocean, and the California sky. From the time of the Royal College, before coming to California, David had done a small drawing representing a man running, and had put a blue spot at the top of the work, which he had then called Man running toward a bit of blue. In fact, blue, especially that intense, bright, deep blue, the blue of Vermeer, was a color toward which one wanted to run, as if toward the sea. The geometric lines of the table, the window, and the large, square, woven wicker armchairs where Christopher and Don are sitting contrast with the softness of the human figures, which ultimately occupy only a small part of the space. It is both a still life and a portrait, a classic and very contemporary painting which reveals Christopher’s feelings for Don and the depth of their relationship.

  Happiness was possible. David felt it every morning when he woke up next to his lover, when he sat down in front of his easel, smelling the odor of the eucalyptus after it had rained, filling his lungs with the scent of jasmine and the salty air of the Pacific, meeting Peter for dinner. Happiness, unlike what the Romantics asserted, was not incompatible with creation, which did not necessarily come out of loss, but also out of plenitude. His decision to come to Los Angeles five years earlier when he didn’t drive, an absurd decision according to his New York friends, had been the best decision he had ever made.

  Peter longed to return to Europe, with which he had fallen in love during their summer in England, France, and Italy. He said he had been born in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a whim, he decided to submit applications to the Royal College and the Slade, and asked David for a letter of recommendation. When he didn’t get into the Royal College, David, who expected as much—the school accepted only five or six students a year—tried to console him. He even took responsibility for the outcome: given his notorious reputation, he told Peter, his recommendation must have worked against him. A few days later another letter arrived, this time from the Slade. Peter opened it, shrugging his shoulders, not expecting anything. His eyes opened wide—he had gotten in.

  For the first time their desires clashed, and they discovered a will in each other that love couldn’t bend. David had no desire to leave Los Angeles, and especially not to go back to England, that elitist, nonegalitarian, and nondemocratic land of myopic nannies, where you couldn’t order a drink after 11 p.m., unless you paid an exorbitant price to belong to a club. Since they had found a place on this earth where they were happy, why tempt fate elsewhere? And what did a true artist learn in a school? Peter knew the basics of drawing, he had talent, he didn’t need anything else. They argued for a long time, bitterly, each sticking to his position. Granted, said Peter, institutions didn’t create artists, but they helped them in their career—and even in their private lives! Wasn’t it thanks to the gold medal from the Royal College that they had met? And his degree, which David didn’t care much about, hadn’t it served as a calling card when he was starting out? Hadn’t Kasmin discovered him at the Royal College? To study in London at a renowned school like the Slade was a unique opportunity: would David deny it to the man he claimed to love? They would be gone just while he was studying, three or four years. And if they didn’t like it, they would just have to cross the ocean again to return to their paradise. Please, David, please. He accompanied his arguments with a caressing and persuasive tenderness. David gave in.

  His fears weren’t realized. Their life in London hardly differed from the one they led in California. They moved into the little Powis Terrace apartment, from which Peter could get to the Slade in twenty minutes on the Tube. David worked at home and, at the end of the day, impatiently awaited the return of his lover after his classes or work in his studio. Peter was disappointed to learn that foreign students didn’t have the right to an individual work space at the Slade, but David found him a room in his friend Ann’s place; Ann, who had recently separated from her husband, and who was an artist too, as well as the mother of an adorable two-year-old with the poetic name Byron—born just after the summer when Peter and David had met—needed to supplement her income. She lived on Colville Square, five minutes from their place—it was actually her ex-husband, a former friend of David’s at the Royal College, who had attracted him to this neighborhood. It couldn’t have been more practical.

  Granted, the sky was grayer, but the cultural life was richer in London than in Los Angeles, and David still had more friends there. They were invited everywhere. They went to premieres of plays, films, and operas, to Ossie’s fashion shows with Celia and Mo. They went to Kasmin’s openings and those at other galleries. They dine
d at Odin, the chic restaurant owned by one of their friends. On the weekends they would visit aristocrats or artists who had châteaux with flower gardens in the English countryside. Peter, bewitched by it all, never stopped taking photos. David saw his country through the eyes of the young American and learned to love it again. On Sundays they gave teas with little sandwiches and cakes that reminded him of his childhood, and which quickly became so popular that they didn’t have enough cups for everyone. The harmony between them had never been greater. Peter thanked David almost every day for granting him access to this world that was so much more refined than his native California. He had blended into London life as if he had always lived there. He was handsome, young, fresh meat amidst older men. Opportunities weren’t lacking, and friends were not always loyal. (Even Henry, in Los Angeles, had swooped down on Peter like a bird of prey one day when he had found him alone in the Pico Boulevard studio, at the very beginning of their relationship. David had really laughed when Peter, as shocked as a modest virgin, had told him about it.) But there was no risk: in London as in L.A., they had eyes only for each other.

  Summer arrived. They returned to the Dordogne to Kas’s place, then went to stay with a friend of David’s, Tony Richardson, an English filmmaker who lived between London and Los Angeles, and who had just renovated a hamlet in the hills above Saint-Tropez to make it a vacation spot for his friends and family—and for others. Tony was so welcoming that you didn’t even have to let him know you were coming: you arrived when you wanted, you occupied one of the bungalows, you lived communally, you spent wonderful days by the pool, on top of a flower-covered hill that looked out over the sea. David and Peter met their L.A. friends there; California had moved to Europe. When autumn arrived, they spent weekends in Paris and traveled around France, always staying in the best hotels. It was so easy to drive as far as the Channel on Friday night, put the car on a ferry, and wake up in northern France on Saturday morning. Continental Europe was at their doorstep, with all its diversity and beauty—David had to admit they didn’t have that in California. They particularly liked the spa in Vichy and its palace of Proustian elegance, the Pavillon Sévigné. It was great to be there alone, just the two of them, to get massages and spend relaxed evenings and nights together.

  Peter brought him good luck. Their second year in London was professionally intense for David: the Whitechapel Gallery, in eastern London, had planned a retrospective of his works. He was following in the footsteps of the greats: that is where Picasso’s Guernica had been exhibited in 1938, an act of protest against the civil war in Spain, and where the first exhibition of Mark Rothko in England had taken place in ’61, when David was still a student at the Royal College, as well as the New Generation exhibition in ’64. The retrospective would show all his work of the past ten years, his drawings, his engravings, the California paintings, the large portraits. He painted another double portrait, of Henry and his boyfriend, whom he went to draw and photograph in New York. That was when he experienced the limitations of the America he so admired: he fell ill, had a very high fever, and discovered to his stupefaction that, in this so very democratic and generous country, it was quite simply impossible to see a doctor if you didn’t already have one. He was forced to wait for hours amongst the poorest of patients in a hospital emergency room.

  Quite unlike the portrait of Christopher and Don, the new painting was predominately green and pink. Henry, his legs crossed, sitting in the middle of an art nouveau–style sofa made of pink velvet, in front of a window with a view of the Manhattan skyline, occupies the center of the canvas and faces the viewer. The light is reflected in his glasses. One of the polished shoes he’s wearing appears under the transparent glass table, the other is on his knee. His boyfriend, standing on the side, in profile, wearing a beige raincoat, seems to be bringing a message or getting ready to go out. “He looks like the angel of the Annunciation,” a friend told him, and David laughed because Henry had nothing in common with the Virgin Mary. The portrait isn’t flattering, but a strength emanates from Henry, from his large stomach seen through the folds of his gray vest, his red tie, his slightly open mouth, his closed fist, the strip of skin visible between his sock and the bottom of his trousers, and again, it is a painting that evokes the relationship between the protagonists. But unlike that of Christopher and Don, the viewer senses that the relationship won’t last. David immediately started another large-format painting, one that depicted Peter and Ossie from the back, sitting on iron chairs next to an empty chair (David’s, who had gotten up to sketch the composition, and who was thus present through his very absence), in the lush green Parc des Sources in Vichy, between two rows of trees (the famous French landscaping style) that taper off into the distance.

  On April 2, David was excited and nervous when he and Peter arrived at the Whitechapel Gallery opening. All of London was there. He saw again for the first time in ten years works from his youth that he had sold. When he was a student at the RCA he was still looking for himself, and his work was filled with references to French, Italian, American, old and contemporary, figurative or abstract painters, especially Dubuffet and Francis Bacon. But even at that time, he had absorbed their styles into his own, and his hand was recognizable, his forms, his theatricality, his taste for fun, his colors, his relationship with space, all of which was a precursor to his large double portraits.

  His first retrospective at the age of thirty-two. He was on his way to becoming a well-known painter, even though he didn’t like thinking about himself in those terms. His parents had heard him on the BBC and had seen photos of him in newspapers, people talked to them about their famous son, and the art gallery in Bradford had bought a few of his etchings. Requests for interviews increased, invitations rained down, people started to recognize him in the street. His works sold like hotcakes, especially the double portraits, luminous, modern, and instantly classic at the same time. Kas urged him to paint more, faster, because collectors were waiting. David didn’t like working under pressure, but it was nice to feel wanted.

  Compared to the exhilaration of his developing fame, his sweet domestic life with Peter sometimes seemed monotonous. They had been faithful to each other for almost four years. Desire was waning. Wasn’t it written everywhere in literature—in Tristan and Isolde’s tale, to start with, which he knew by heart thanks to Wagner’s opera—that passion lasts three years? It now happened that Peter didn’t want to make love, and he didn’t even want David to kiss him. Peter accused his lover of not taking him seriously as an artist. David shrugged his shoulders. Peter was a twenty-two-year-old student at the Slade: he shouldn’t exaggerate. After the retrospective, he complained of being only a sexual object in David’s paintings—isn’t that what all the newspapers were saying, and what their friends thought? David rolled his eyes and thought it best not to respond.

  They argued the day before Easter when he was leaving to catch a train for Bradford, without Peter, since Easter, like Christmas, was strictly a family holiday.

  “Are you ashamed of me?” Peter asked aggressively.

  “Don’t start.”

  “You’re a real coward, David. I put up with my parents’ anger for you.”

  “It’s not about that, you know it. It’s just not the right time.”

  They had already argued on that subject. David had explained that his parents, who had grown up in the provinces and went to the Methodist church every Sunday, knew nothing of homosexuality, except that the Lord had rained sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. He didn’t want to shock his mother when she was almost seventy, and while she was worrying about her husband’s ill health.

  “It’s never the right time!” shouted Peter, slamming the door.

  When David returned from Bradford two days later with a chocolate egg, Peter was still brooding.

  There wasn’t much room in the apartment, which was also used as a studio. The adjoining apartment was for sale, and thanks to the success of his r
etrospective David was able to buy it. Work would begin in the autumn. Peter would supervise the workers and take care of decorating it. It was an activity he liked; he would feel useful. For a while, they talked only about their plans for the renovation. They had a common desire once again. Then in August, Peter left for Los Angeles to see his parents. When he returned at the beginning of September, he found David lovingly waiting for him. But their reunion wasn’t what David had hoped for—they started arguing almost immediately. Peter was tense, irritable, and when David asked him what was wrong, he blamed his bad mood on jet lag, clearly a pretext. In the autumn, David took him to Northern and Eastern Europe, to the countries where the Whitechapel exhibition was traveling. The palaces of Karlsbad and Marienbad were wonderfully outdated, but Peter was upset because there were no antique shops; he held it against his lover, as if it were his fault. David, who could no longer talk to him without annoying him, found his moods tiresome.

  Maybe Peter the Californian could no longer endure the long English winter, the sleet, the pollution, and he simply needed some sun. In February, David suggested they go to Morocco with their friend Celia, whom Peter liked a lot. The Hotel Mamounia was an oasis of beauty, of luxury, and of refinement, and the view of the gardens and palm trees from the balcony of their room where Peter was standing was splendid. David immediately saw the composition. When he took out his camera and his sketchbook, the young man, exasperated, threw up his arms: “Again!” He didn’t want to pose. He wanted to leave the hotel, go to Marrakech, walk around the souk, visit the Gettys at their palace. “You’re so young!” exclaimed David. “I’m done with all that.” Peter accused him of being condescending and became so enraged that Celia, who came running over from the adjoining room, had a very hard time calming him down.