Nicholas Wilder
Signed Print

Printed as an edition of 95 at the famous Gemini print workshop in LA, where Hockney collaborated closely with Kenneth Tyler, this work was published in 1975 as part of the Friends portfolio of lithographs. Along with the curator Henry Geldzahler, the model Joe MacDonald and the writer Christopher Isherwood, Nicholas Wilder is a notable figure among this collection. Pictured sitting cross legged in an armchair with one arm slung across the back of it Wilder gives an immediate impression of confidence. Despite the ease of his pose his eyes are averted as if avoiding those of the viewer, or the artist. Staring off into the middle distance he appears preoccupied or distracted. Beside him is a strangely ordered arrangement of pencils on a table, an unusual prop for this series which mostly comprises vases of flowers or potted plants as counterpoints to the sitter. The props enhance the artifice of the setting which was arranged at the print studio, rather than in the sitter or artist’s home, and by turns the very nature of a portrait as a way to capture a moment of stillness from life.