Name: Christopher Isherwood And Don Bachardy (study)
Brand: David Hockney
Rating: 4.9 (183 reviews)

Meaning & Analysis

This signed photographic print is by much-loved British artist David Hockney. Produced in 1968, it is part of the artists Photographs collection and is a study for a double-portrait of author Christopher Isherwood and his partner, Don Bachardy, painted by Hockney in the same year.

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This signed photographic print is by much-loved and highly regarded British artist, David Hockney. Entitled Christopher Isherwood And Don Bachardy (Study), its name straightforwardly references its content and reflects Hockney’s extended use of photography as a static visual reference for his painting. Depicting world-famous British writer, Christopher Isherwood – author of, amongst other novels, Goodbye To Berlin (1939), later adapted into the stage musical and film Cabaret, and A Single Man (1964) – alongside his partner and artist, Don Bachardy, this print captures preparations for Hockney’s world-famous double portrait of the pair. As many of the works in the Photo Collages series show, Hockney has often used photography as a means to explore and experiment with composition, often using the medium – which he has often criticised as too unifocal – as a quick and easy means to capture a moment he will then render in paint. Commenting on Isherwood’s relaxed pose, Hockney once commented, ‘Whenever I said “Relax,” Christopher always sat with his foot across his knee, and he always looked at Don. Don never looked that way; he was always looked at me. So I thought, that’s the pose it should be.’