Gregory
Signed Print

David Hockney met Gregory Evans in Los Angeles in 1971. They were lovers for ten years and when the artist was recently asked in an interview who the love of his life has been he replied, ‘Maybe Gregory’. Today Evans continues to be Hockney’s friend and curator. Over the course of his career the artist has produced 40 drawings, prints and paintings of Evans including this tender depiction which feels more illustrative in style than some of his other portraits with its watery colours brushed over the fine outlines of the young man’s figure. Produced in 1974 while the two were still a couple, the print exudes an easy intimacy; while he is not looking at the artist, we can sense that Evans is comfortable in his presence and in this setting. Beside him sits an elaborate vase of flowers, a typical prop of Hockney’s portraits, which allows the still life genre to be in conversation with the portrait and which reminds us of the artifice or posed nature of the scene. In this way Hockney is not content with simply creating an image of his lover; as with other series we see him draw on art historical traditions and motifs, in order to elevate an everyday portrait into something that looks back to the lineage that came before it.