David Hockney – David Hockney 82 Portraits And 1 Still-Life – Boxed Set Of 82 Postcards

Artist: Hockney, David
Publisher: Royal Academy Of Arts
Price: £125 including postage in the UK
Publication Date: 2016
Edition: First edition
Size: 12mo
Condition: Near fine

Condition:

Produced to accompany the exhibition held at The Royal Acvademy of Arts in 2016. Slipcase very slightly rubbed and in near fine condition. Postcards in fine condition and complete. Complete sets are scarce.

David Hockney 82 Portraits And 1 Still-Life: A Brief Overview

1. Context and conception

82 Portraits and 1 Still-Life (2016) is one of David Hockney’s most conceptually disciplined and formally unified projects. It was first shown at the Royal Academy, London, marking a major late-career statement following his Yorkshire landscapes.

The series:

• Began in 2013 in Hockney’s Los Angeles studio
• Consists of over 90 portraits in total, with 82 selected for exhibition
• Represents friends, family, and long-term collaborators, rather than celebrities

Hockney himself framed the project as a return to “serious portraiture” in the age of photography, deliberately positioning painting as a slower, more attentive medium.

2. Structure and formal system

The project is defined by an almost scientific consistency:

• Identical canvas size (approx. 121 × 91 cm)
• Same chair and studio setting
• Flat, vivid blue background
• Three-day sittings (~20 hours each)
• Uniform frontal or near-frontal pose

Each sitter was painted under the same conditions, producing a controlled experimental framework.

This standardisation serves a precise purpose:

by holding all variables constant, difference becomes the subject.

Subtle distinctions—posture, clothing, facial tension, gaze—become heightened and psychologically legible.

3. The sitters

The portraits form a social and intellectual map of Hockney’s world, especially his Los Angeles circle.

Subjects include:

• Artists (e.g. John Baldessari)
• Curators and dealers (e.g. Larry Gagosian)
• Writers, designers, friends, and relatives

Crucially:

• All are personally known to Hockney
• Many relationships span decades (up to 50 years)

This lends the series a biographical depth—it is as much a portrait of Hockney’s life as of individual people.

4. The “20-hour exposure”

Hockney described each painting as a “20-hour exposure”, borrowing language from photography.

Implications:

• The portraits are time-based records, not snapshots
• They accumulate micro-observations over repeated sessions
• The sitter must remain engaged, producing a form of mutual concentration

This process contrasts sharply with digital portrait culture (selfies, quick images), reinforcing painting as durational seeing.

5. Painterly language and technique

Despite the rigid system, the paintings are visually lively:

• Acrylic paint applied with clarity and speed
• Crisp outlines, saturated colour, minimal modelling
• Strong lighting reminiscent of Southern California daylight

The result:

• A hybrid of modernist flatness and psychological portraiture
• Echoes of:
  • Matisse (colour and simplification)
  • Picasso (structural clarity)
  • Hockney’s own 1960s portrait work

Uniformity in composition paradoxically amplifies painterly variation—brushwork, colour decisions, and handling differ subtly across works.

6. Psychological dimension

Although formally consistent, the portraits are deeply individualised:

• Small shifts in:
  • posture (upright vs relaxed)
  • gaze (direct vs evasive)
  • clothing (formal vs casual)
• These produce distinct psychological readings

As critics noted, the works become “psychological explorations” of each sitter.

There is no narrative or symbolic background—the entire meaning is carried by:

• the figure
• their presence
• Hockney’s sustained observation

7. The single still-life

The “+1” in the title refers to a still-life of fruit and vegetables on a bench.

• Painted when a sitter cancelled
• Maintains the same compositional logic (frontal, centred, isolated)

Interpretively:

• It acts as a conceptual counterpoint:
  • human presence vs inanimate objects
  • portrait vs traditional still-life genre
• It subtly underscores the idea that looking itself is the subject, regardless of object.

8. Installation and viewing experience

In exhibition:

• Paintings are typically hung in dense, grid-like arrangements
• The repetition creates a cumulative visual rhythm

Effects on the viewer:

• Encourages comparative looking
• Creates a sense of immersion in a social field
• Functions almost like a human archive or typology

The installation transforms individual portraits into a single, large-scale conceptual artwork.

9. Themes and interpretation

The persistence of painting

Hockney asserts that:

• Painting can still compete with photography
• It offers depth, duration, and attentiveness

Time and attention

• The works are records of extended looking
• They resist the speed of contemporary image culture

Identity through difference

• Uniform structure reveals individuality
• Identity emerges through minor deviations

Friendship and intimacy

• The project is fundamentally relational
• It maps Hockney’s personal universe

10. Critical significance

This series is widely regarded as:

• A major late-career achievement
• A reaffirmation of Hockney’s commitment to figuration and observation
• A sophisticated engagement with the history of portraiture

It bridges:

• Classical portrait traditions (Rembrandt, Ingres)
• Modernist reduction
• Contemporary concerns about image saturation

Concise evaluation

82 Portraits and 1 Still-Life is not merely a set of portraits—it is a systematic investigation into how we see people.

Through:

• repetition
• constraint
• time-intensive observation

Hockney demonstrates that individuality becomes most visible when everything else is held constant.

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