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Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool

David Hockney, 1966

WAG 6605

Part of

Queer relationships

© © David Hockney. Photo Credit Richard Schmidt.

About this object

This painting won the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 6 (now known as the John Moores Painting Prize) in 1967. It shows the communal swimming pool of an apartment block at 1145 Larrabee Street, Hollywood, just north of Sunset Boulevard. This was the home of one of Hockney's friends, the art dealer and gallery owner Nick Wilder. Hockney lived there from summer 1966 until early 1967 whilst at the same time renting a decrepit studio in central Los Angeles. Hockney’s boyfriend, Peter Schlesinger, a 19-year old painter whom he had met while teaching, is the naked figure climbing out of the pool.

Hockney copied the figure of Peter from a Polaroid photograph that he had taken, showing him leaning naked against the bonnet of a car. The square format of the photograph is deliberately evoked in the shape of the painting. The idea of leaving a border of unprimed, virgin canvas, Hockney said, was “to make the picture look more like a painting”. He wanted to emphasise the process of picture-making and the artifice involved in creating an illusion. Hockney subsequently thought that this wish was a timid accommodation to prevailing fashions amongst avant-garde painters. At this stage though he still wanted, however peripherally, to be involved with formal advances in art.

When Hockney entered the Royal College of Art in 1959, a homosexual act between two men was illegal in the UK. It was not until 1967 that this was partially decriminalised. Against this backdrop, Hockney pursued his personal and artistic identity as a young gay man. He found acceptance and inspiration within London’s homosexual sub-culture and later the more liberating environment he encountered in New York. Alongside his artistic development, Hockney became a pioneer of gay subject matter.

Before he became confident enough to paint figure pictures, Hockney used text, like the grafitti in public toilets. This acted as a code through which his gay identity could be both hidden and – to those in the know – revealed. In later works, Hockney took more risks in expressing his sexuality, featuring more explicit references to gay culture such as a series of prints dedicated to the homosexual Greek poet, Constantine P Cavafy (1863 - 1933). He described his intentions in so frequently depicting gay subject matter as a form of activism through art: “What one must remember about some of these pictures is that they were partly propaganda of something I felt hadn’t been propagandised as a subject: homosexuality.”

Object specifics

  • Artist(s)
    David Hockney (British: English, born:1937-07-09, died:unknown)
  • Date
    1966
  • Materials
    Acrylic paint; Canvas
  • Measurements
    canvas/support: 152 cm x 152 cm
  • Physical description
    A picture of naked man standing in a swimming pool with his back to the viewer. He looksto his right, There is a house in the background with a large window and two deck chairs at the pool side.
  • Related people
    David Hockney (Artist/maker, previous owner) ; John Moores (Previous owner)
  • Other number(s)
    WAG Inventory Number: 6605
  • Credit line
    Presented to the Walker Art Gallery by John Moores in 1968
  • Location
    Walker Art Gallery, Room 14
  • Collection
    From the Walker Art Gallery collections

Ownership

Previous owners

  • David Hockney

    Owned from: 1966
    How acquired: Unknown or unrecorded
    Owned until: 1967
    Disposal method: Sold to Sir John Moores

  • Sir John Moores

    Owned from: 1967
    How acquired: Purchased from the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 6
    Owned until: 1968
    Disposal method: Presented to the Walker Art Gallery
Object view = Fine Art
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