Joe With David Harte
Signed Print

A young man sits with his back to us in a wicker seat, his head turned in profile, looking away from the figure who watches him reproachfully while standing in the corner of the room. The seated man, who we recognise as Joe Macdonald from Hockney’s earlier print series, Friends, has been rendered in an inky blue while the man who must be David Harte is delineated in a bright red which both complements and contrasts, pitting the two against each other as if they are fighters in opposite corners of a boxing ring. The work, titled Joe With David Harte, is part of Hockney’s Tyler Graphics 1979 Portfolio, a series of lithographs of portraits of his friends characterised by a number of poses in which the sitter is turned or looking away from the artist/viewer. This failure to meet our gaze evokes intimacy in the work, which could also be read as a kind of mistrust, or intrusion, as if the artist had caught them unawares or is spying on them. The work is also notable for its loose style, its inky brush strokes a key to Hockney’s way of working with a brush dipped in tusche (diluted lithographic ink) which allowed him to create a more painterly effect in his prints.