david hockney : paintings

David HockneyDavid Hockney was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1937 to a working class family. He went on to a prize-winning career as a student at the Royal College of Art. It was there that he met fellow artists such as R.B. Kitaj, Peter Philips and Patrick Caulfield, who were to become stars of the British Pop Art Scene. By his mid-20s, Hockney had already become one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary artists in Britain. At only 26 he had his first one-man show and in 1967 was awarded first prize in the John Moores Exhibition. Although he rejected the label 'Pop', much of his work contains references to popular culture and contains a good deal of humour. The Californian swimming pool was one of his favourite subjects, indicating his love-affair with Los Angeles and most memorably featured in the painting 'A Bigger Splash' (1967).Picasso was one of Hockney's role models in his demonstration of creative freedom and original thinking.