David Hockney died yesterday. This was met with the compulsory outpouring of grief from all the usual sources, led by King Charles III who described him as a ‘Giant of the art world’. A man, Charles tells us, who was ‘One of life’s true originals’. In truth however, his art was crap and he was far from original.
When I was about 7 years old I remember being in my uncle Brians house in Fulham. He worked with Nick Serota to establish the Tate Modern, and had, in his hallway, a picture of a bloke in a pool. I remember how ugly I thought it was and how weird it seemed that my uncle had it hanging there. I asked him who was in the painting. ‘It’s a Hockney’ he said. I didn’t know what he meant. 10 years later I would have said ‘It looks gay’. And it was.
Hockney has been described as a towering pioneer of queer art, who lived openly as a ‘gay man’ long before homosexuality was decriminialised. Hockney openly described his early, intimate depictions of gay love and desire as a necessary form of ‘propaganda’ for a subject that had been largely ignored.
Well Hockney must have died a happy man, having witnessed the fruit of his efforts. It’s remarkable how quickly we have moved from a country that had some sense of decency and restraint, to one that legitimises and celebrates sterile sex and ‘orgasm addicts’.
In a recent conversation we had with Frank Wright, he said;
