David Hockney: A Really Big Splash

"I arrived in [London in] September 1959, but by the summer of 1961 I'd spent a few months in New York. As soon as I got there I realised that this was the place for me. It was a 24-hour city in a way London wasn't. It didn't matter where you were from. I absolutely loved it, and then when I went to LA I liked that even more. So when swinging London was going on, for most of it I was actually in California. And I never thought London was that swinging when I did come back. It was for a few people, but in LA it was for the many, which I preferred. In LA in 1964 there were enormous gay bars. There wasn't anything like that in London, or even in New York."

It's David Hockney day today!
It feels like it's been Hockney week.
Maybe this will be his year?
He's got some big new exhibition coming up, apparently, A Bigger Picture.
There's a huge profile and interview in The Guardian; David Hockney: A Life In Art.
It's the best piece by far - humanising a man who's usually caricatured as a grumpy old git who keeps banging on about the smoking ban.
It's worth noting no-one here has called Hockney a "national treasure" - which may only mean that none of these journalists like vacuous cliches.
The Financial Times gives us the flowery 'Blue-Sky Painting - David Hockney talks about his new landscape show at the Royal Academy and explains why the ‘arrival of spring can’t be done in one picture’.
The Daily Mail the rather creepy The Wish From A Dying Friend That Helped Artist David Hockney To Love Britain Again.
Isn't it cute they have to explain to readers in the headline he's an artist?
The Mail reprints his painting The Road Across The Wold. Typical reader comment; "What a load of tosh! My 6 year old granddaughter could paint better pictures than that."
In The Times there's a piece on the new exhibition; Nature Imitates Art In Yorkshire.
But they did their big feature on David last Saturday; David Hockney On Beauty, Life and Landscape.
And they kept readers happy inbetween with David Hockney and his iPad last Thursday.
The Telegraph has done no major feature - yet; A Bigger Picture doesn't open til January 21st, but they've still managed to mention him four times in the last few days, usually in relation to his (now denied) spat with Damien Hirst about artists using assistants.
Tis only The Independent who are letting the entire nation down with a total Hockney no-show - but we still have a week to go til his new show opens.
Indy hack - let Fagburn help you write it!

Britain's greatest living painter/artist, 75 this year, Order Of Merit, smoking.
New Royal Academy exhibition, A Bigger Picture, not a retrospective, East Yorkshire landscapes, iPad, video, friend Wayne Sleep.
Born Bradford, Yorkshire, loved/loves Picasso, Royal College Of Art, swinging London, Pop Art, "trail-blazing use of gay themes", California, A Bigger Splash, "partner" John Fitzherbert, technology early adopter.
Losing hearing, return to Britain, Bridlington, sister's house, "Hockney Country", mention A Bigger Picture again.
End with short upbeat quote; "By 'eck!" etc.

Update: On Monday 16th, The Independent published a - rather good - piece on Hockney by Philip Hensher, Genius Is Just A Matter Of Taste, musing on the whole "greatest living painter" malarkey.