Henry With Cigar

While working on such famous portraits as My Parents And Myself (1975), Hockney took a series of photographs to serve as studies for individual figures. The period of late 1970s marks Hockney’s growing distrust towards photography, a medium which, in the artist’s view, allows one to capture details at a high level of accuracy but does not necessarily correspond with the experience of reality by the individual. In 1976, the artist moves away from the use of the photographic image as a point of reference for portraits. The shift makes itself present in Henry With Cigar through Hockney’s use of tusche, a diluted form of lithographic ink that renders Geldzahler’s facial features in a series of marks and blotches resembling strokes of the Oriental brush.

The use of tusche here can be seen to encapsulate the artist's desire to distance himself from the tradition of naturalism with its precise use of a hard line and down-to-earth approach towards the representation of the human subject. Although Geldzahler’s likeness is immediately recognizable in the print, Hockney’s way of treating the subject is different compared to his earlier portraits characterised by precise details and crisp linear outlines. Displaying the economy of means, thick blotches, and bold strokes, the print represents Hockney’s embracing of a more freewheeling approach to the art of portraiture.