David Hockney Celia with Green Hat (M.C.A.T 268) For Sale

David Hockney’s Celia with Green Hat is a signed and dated lithograph of one of his most enduring subjects, his close friend, the famed British fashion designer and printmaker, Celia Birtwell. It is one of five prints of Birtwell in the Moving Focus Series. Hockney commented, ‘Portraits aren't just made up of drawing, they are made up of other insights as well. Celia is one of the few girls I know really well. I've drawn her so many times and knowing her makes it always slightly different. I don’t bother getting the likeness in her face because I know it so well. She has many faces and I think if you looked through all the drawings I’ve done of her, you’d see that they don’t look alike.”

Unlike the understated drawings of Birtwell from earlier Hockney series’, Celia with Green Hat is a dramatic portrayal: Hockney shows his technical skill as a colourist using form and bold colour to exaggerate her skin tone and facial features in this endearing depiction of his bohemian friend.

In Celia With Green Hat, Celia Birtwell is captured front facing: she’s wearing a green beret style hat from which we can see her messy bob hair and flushed pink complexion. Her cheeks are rosy hued, set off by her big green eyes, staring out at us, her hands are curled up underneath her as if she is deep in thought. Her jumper is a garish, bright blue as if also to contrast with and accentuate her fleshy, soft face; once again Hockney uses these contrasting, bright colourings to convey an emotion through the print surface.

In Celia with a Green Hat, through the intensely focused composition and bold colourings, we can sense Hockney’s profound attachment to Birtwell, without knowing the context or narrative behind this sitting. He draws the viewer into an intimacy with the subject decimating traditional representations of portraiture and creating a new artistic language.