David Hockney The Arrival (M.C.A.T 12) For Sale

The Arrival opens The Rake’s Progress, David Hockney’s series of 16 etchings, based on the 18^th century tale by William Hogarth of a ‘Rake’ man-about-town who falls into squalor: yet Hockney gives the story a semi-autobiographical, modern rendering, re-imagining the ‘Rake’ as a young gay artist struggling to find his identity, living in New York City.

Although Hockney’s idea for The Rake’s Progress series was realised when he went on a trip to the Big Apple, late in 1961, Hockney actually began work on The Arrival, one of his most famous early etchings whilst still studying at the Royal College of Art, arguably a sign of how Hockney’s homosexuality affected him from an early age.

The Arrival depicts a figure – that resembles the artist himself – arriving for the first time in New York, he’s walking on a rough trodden path, arguably a metaphor for the struggles he’s going to encounter on his gay life journey. He is carrying a simple briefcase and is heading for the Empire State Building, symbolic of the Big Apple as a place of hope, democracy and liberation. The figure is depicted with ‘wings’ hanging from his jacket, designed with the slogan, ‘Flying tyger,’ referencing the American airlines, ‘Flying Tigers,’ but giving it a cultural twist, referencing the poem, The Tyger, by English poet, William Blake: ‘Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night…’

Beyond these immediate character representations and iconography, Hockney imbues the image with rich symbolism and metaphors for a figure he claims is not him but a representation of the gay man’s experience at that time, ‘it is not really me. It’s just that I use myself as a model because I am always around.’

The image dramatises the archetypal idea of heading to New York to experience ‘the American Dream,’ with a sense of tension and foreboding: a bolt of red bears down from the sky reflecting the stress and pressure of intense summer heat in the gridlocked city, whilst the instantly recognisable Empire State Building, which the figure moves towards is clouded by a composition resembling a dark looming shadow standing in the character’s pathway.

In The Arrival, Hockney creates a complex portrait, that depicts a character caught in the emotional rollercoaster of his ‘lost’ life, uncomfortable with his sexuality and identity. As a viewer we are empathetically drawn to his position in life, striving forward towards freedom and his dreams, but somehow understand this will not be an easy or happy experience.