An Image Of Celia
Signed Print

One of five portraits of Hockney’s close friend and muse Celia Birtwell, An Image Of Celia shows the designer sitting in an armchair in a seemingly shifting interior. Recalling Picasso’s portraits of Dora Maar, the work employs multiple perspectives to experiment with a Cubist aesthetic. Here Celia's face has been replaced with a small canvas which bears her likeness, her features skewed and mirrored to further emphasise the link with Picasso. The background is dark making the room feel close around the chair and adding a layer of disquiet to the scene which is echoed in the large scale of the chair which, with its many planes, threatens to consume her. This seeming threat is belied however in the naturalness of her pose, her legs nonchalantly crossed, her hand calmly resting on the arm. She gazes back at us, confident and in control. As with many of the works in the Moving Focus series the print includes a range of textures and colours, from the stuffed quilted motif of the armchair to the raking light coming into the sides, demonstrating Hockney’s confidence with lithography and the bold aesthetic of the 80s coming to the fore.