Alan Davie and David Hockney: Early Works at The Hepworth Wakefield

In this short film, curator Eleanor Clayton, assistant curator Abi Shapiro and independent co-curator Helen Little introduce Alan Davie & David Hockney: Early Works at The Hepworth Wakefield.

In 1958 Alan Davie had his first solo exhibition at Wakefield Art Gallery, which went on to tour nationally and launched Davie’s career. A young visitor to the Wakefield exhibition was David Hockney, then a recent graduate of Bradford College of Art.

The exhibition was a pivotal influence on Hockney’s artistic development and shortly after this visit, Hockney moved to London to take up a place at the Royal College of Art. There he discarded, as Davie had, realist figurative painting in favour of colourful, gestural works that combined abstraction with coded text and symbolism.

Alan Davie & David Hockney: Early Works will trace the parallel paths of these key figures of post-war British painting, revealing shared preoccupations with passion, love, sex and poetry as their works of art oscillated between figuration and abstraction.

As the country moved from post-war austerity to the ‘swinging sixties’, it was a time when contemporary art was becoming a central part of popular culture. Artists appeared in films, were interviewed on television and featured in the new colour Sunday supplements. The exhibition will explore this exciting moment in British art and the emergence of a radical new art world.

Alan Davie & David Hockney: Early Works
19 October 2019 - 19 January 2020
Open daily, 10am-5pm (closed 25 & 26 December)
FREE entry

hepworthwakefield.org/whats-on/we-two-boys-early-works-by-alan-davie-david-hockney/

Exhibition supported by: Hiscox, Alan Wheatley Art, THW Contemporary Circle

Film: Nick Singleton