DAVID HOCKNEY (1937-2026) Nude Boy (Executed in 1966)

DAVID HOCKNEY (1937-2026)
Nude Boy
signed with the artist's initials and dated 'DH. 66' (lower right)
coloured pencil and pencil on paper
42.8 x 35.2cm (16 7/8 x 13 7/8in).
Executed in 1966
Footnotes:
Provenance
Knoedler Gallery, London
Private Collection
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 26 February 1986, lot 339
Dennis Hotz Fine Art, South Africa
Private Collection, Sydney (acquired from the above in 1989)

Beautifully executed in pencil and coloured crayon, Nude Boy captures David Hockney at an exciting moment when both his surroundings and his vision were beginning to change. Dating from 1966, the drawing belongs to Hockney's third year in Los Angeles, following his move from London in 1964. The brilliant light and open spaces of Southern California offered a striking contrast to the muted greys of London, and with this new environment came a new visual language. One in which the male figure could be observed with an increasing sense of freedom, intimacy and ease.

Here, a young man reclines at ease, his body loosely described in soft, swiftly applied strokes of coloured crayon. The flashes of vivid green lend the drawing a particular freshness, their unexpected intensity animating the otherwise delicate composition and heightening the impression of a scene caught in the immediacy of the moment. The informality of the pose and the spontaneity of the handling give the drawing a quality of fleeting observation, as though Hockney has captured the figure in an unguarded moment. Rather than relying on the literary references and graphic shorthand that had characterised much of his early work, he observes the body with an openness that feels distinctly Californian. This new frankness was significant. In England, where sexual relations between men remained illegal until 1967, Hockney had often encoded homoerotic subjects through wit, quotation and symbolism. In Los Angeles, his male figures could increasingly be presented with a directness that was both tender and unapologetic.

Nude Boy thus belongs to a moment of both personal and artistic liberation. It was in 1966, the year of execution of the present work, that Hockney met Peter Schlesinger, who would become his lover, model and muse, and whose presence would profoundly shape his figurative work throughout the following years. With its loose lines, sunlit palette and unselfconscious pose, the drawing has the freshness of an artist looking at the world anew. Nude Boy marks the emergence of a more intimate and liberated approach to the male figure that would become central to Hockney's work in Los Angeles.
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