David Hockney An Image of Ken M.C.A.T 284) For Sale

Image of Ken by David Hockney is a signed and dated lithograph, part of the 26 print Moving Focus series, which depicts the acclaimed master printer, Kenneth Tyler, who Hockney encountered upon during his relocation to California. Tyler was a groundbreaking printer who helped Hockney evolve his visual language with contemporary technical innovation to create the pioneering, Moving Focus series. Infact it was Tyler who introduced Hockney to the process of combining painting with printmaking to profound creative acclaim. It is not widely known that Tyler was also responsible for the new refinement in the later period of work by graphic pop art genius, Roy Lichtenstein.

Image of Ken is a portraiture ode to Kenneth Tyler, the visionary printmaker, Hockney forged such a close relationship with during this period of his life (mid 80’s) and whom Hockney greatly admired.

In Image of Ken, arguably, we can most notably see Hockney’s technical development in his approach to capturing his creative friend. Whilst the portraiture genre is a staple of Hockney’s whole oeuvre, Image of Ken is one of his most experimental and multi-dimensional portraits. Whilst Hockney has always played with multiple techniques from etching, lithography, to intaglio printmaking, Image of Ken combines many of his technical elements to create an intimate and innovative print.

Hockney initially presents the viewer with a heavy black and white ‘etching’, his print capturing just the facial features and shoulders of Kenneth Tyler: yet the face is disfigured, which creates distortion in the natural symmetry and proportion of the human face. His face seems almost dual as two incompatible facial shapes overlap: his eyes, nose and forehead are pointed in the different direction to his chin, which appears to be speaking into the telephone receiver he is holding on the other side of the image. There is a characteristic Hockney humour to the exaggerated features of this image; Tyler wears oversized glasses, he has a furrowed brow and what could be a moustache.

Ironically for a print that Hockney created by moving his techniques forward, Image of Ken, also heavily looks back to art history tropes, namely Picasso. And in doing so he creates new discourse around the essence of portraiture and what it is to be an artist.