The earliest paintings indicate Mr. Hockney’s attention to Abstract Expressionism and Bacon’s figurative scrums and his penchant for scatterings of numbers, texts and product labels that presage Pop Art. And it emerges from the bedroom in the Baconesque “The Cha-Cha That Was Danced in the Early Hours of 24th March,” from 1961. Here a blurred figure in a white suit wearing heels and carrying a handbag dances before abstract blocks of red and blue. PhotoIn these paintings, Mr. Hockney’s awkward figurative style fleshes out toward naturalism, impudently balancing between art and illustration. The stage is set with clean-edged forms, suffusions of blue and nearly single-point perspectives that glorify the skies, swimming pools, architecture and lawns of Los Angeles.

Source: New York Times November 23, 2017 19:41 UTC