Hockney’s controversial experiment

The last David Hockney show at Annely Juda Fine Art was in the summer of 1997. It was a large show of oils on canvas with the alliterative and rhyming title Flowers, Faces and Spaces. In one prominent, large painting called ‘Sunflowers’ no fewer than five different blue, purple or green vases containing these fiery yellow blooms, previously thought to have been patented by Vincent van Gogh, were arranged against a bright-green background on a plain, bright-red tablecloth. By out-Vincenting Vincent in the colour contrast department, these works seemed positively to court accusations of being over-the-top. Gone was the restrained but individualistic colour of Hockney’s early work. Gone was the magical colour of some of his stage designs.

Were we witnessing a deliberate attack on good taste? Or were these very bright flower paintings being thrown in as shock troops in Hockney’s extended love/hate battle against photography? Or is there another, unthinkable explanation? The most extreme and at the same time the most logical reaction of a painter who is disenchanted with the inadequacy of camera vision is to become an abstract artist.