Tommy Nutter and David Hockney: Velvet Revolutionaries

A year ago I visited the Tommy Nutter exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, and wanted to post my original blog post here too - not just to remind myself of the serendipitous 'Hockney moment', but also because of another moment of serendipity. The 'Inspired By Warhol' exhibition at Ferens Art Gallery explores fashion during Nutter's heyday - in fact, I wrote about him on a men's fashion text label. Unfortunately he didn't make the final edit, but his influence on the era is clearly visible, as is that of Hockney's close friends Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark. Just as Hockney attracted me into Ferens in the first place, it's come full circle with 1960/70s fashion following me! 

'Tommy Nutter: Rebel On The Row', Fashion and Textile Museum, London (www.ftmlondon.org)

I had just started walking around this exhibition when suddenly I heard someone say "David Hockney!". I was puzzled and intrigued by the curious co-incidence, as I had sent an email enquiring about the Hockney Volunteer Project before leaving for London.

It should have been obvious really. I was standing looking at the work of maverick 1960s tailor Tommy Nutter. As the exhibition programme describes, he was "a designer whose vision carved an original style from the traditions of bespoke tailoring; a style that reflected the heady and liberating spirit of the times". On display were suits of tweed, check, velvet and satin "all referencing the silver screen idols and styles of the 1930s".

The source of the Hockney remark was soon revealed - safely under glass, an original order book, listing Nutter's customers and what they had ordered from him (and what it cost and if they'd paid or not!). Among orders for Elton John and Mick Jagger was an order for a velvet suit - jacket, trousers and waistcoat - for a certain Mr Hockney (I think he'd paid, but can't remember how much). Sadly, this particular suit wasn't on display (I wonder if he still has it? Or wears it?!), but stage costumes for Elton John and The Rolling Stones were, and it's easy to see why Nutter's designs appealed to Hockney.

"(David Hockney) was a major cultural symbol of 60s London - of a new confidence, a generation that was overturning everything" Chrissie Illes, curator at Whitney Museum of American Art, notes ('David Hockney's Long Road Home' by Carol Kino, New York Times, October 15 2009). Close friends with Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, who he also depicted in his art, it is easy to imagine how he and his contemporaries, such as Nutter, all influenced each other.

One look at the photos on The Selvedge Yard blog post link shows how much David Hockney has always enjoyed dressing up - the way he knowingly and playfully poses for the camera lens shows how he understands how to be the subject as well as the artist. Perhaps to him, the body is another canvas, another medium of expression.

He still cuts a dash today, attending the 'Bigger Trees Near Warter' preview at the Ferens in a striking ensemble, complete with hat and scarf. A 2006 Vogue interview was accompanied by a brilliant portrait by Christopher Simon Sykes of Hockney beside the beach huts at South Beach in Bridlington. He is wearing a checked suit, pink shirt, lilac scarf and white cap (with his ever-present signature accessory of cigarette in hand). He has always appeared to be fascinated by and revel in aesthetic pleasure, wherever he finds it, which makes him truly inspirational. As the 'Un Homme Un Style' blog post points out, that the Spring 2012 Galliano Menswear collection is a homage to Hockney's 'A Bigger Splash' and his personal style is proof of that, and that fashion and art still influence each other even today.

(Celia Birtwell posts to follow)

I want a Warhol for my birthday....

And that's exactly what I'll get - many of them in fact. Well, not just me, but everyone who visits Ferens Art Gallery on 2 June, which is my birthday! That's when 'Andy Warhol: Artist Rooms' opens (until 13 January 2013). I visited the current Warhol exhibition at The Graves Gallery in Sheffield recently, which had some of the self portraits also shown at The Lowry in Manchester's exhibition ('Warhol and the Diva'), which I visited and wrote about last year for 'Mr Hockney In Hull'. As the Ferens prepares to go Pop, I thought it would be an ideal time to revisit it. It's interesting to think how back then I didn't know the Ferens would be welcoming Warhol, and the thought of Warhol and Hockney's work both on display in the gallery is truly exciting.




"Art is what you can get away with" - Andy Warhol

After walking around rooms of Lowry's mill scenes and seascapes, it's quite a shock to suddenly find myself surrounded by Hollywood glamour. But then Warhol himself, having grown up poor in a mining town, knew only too well the impact of divas such as Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in bringing that glamour to the everyday. 

On the surface (where Warhol appeared happiest), there is little in this show that's new. Warhol was interested in celebrating the banality of the everyday. What this exhibition does do is explore Warhol's own fascination with the women he made into art. There are startling photos and film footage of him in women's clothes, wig and make-up, appearing to emulate Marilyn Monroe. In a room painted gold and hot pink, filled with Warhol's Marilyns and a chandelier reflecting in the glass, it's a pretty powerful impression. 

There are also photographs of Warhol with many of his artistic subjects, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Harry. What is striking is how comfortable they look in his presence, regarding him as a fellow star, while he retains the awkward pose of the impoverished starstruck kid, always the detached outsider.

Given David Hockney's association with Warhol, I was interested in what common ground their art appears to share. In a New York Times article ('David Hockney's Long road Home') by Carol Kino (October 15, 2009), Chrissie Iles, curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art is quoted as saying "(Hockney) took the very English preoccupation with portraiture and turned it upside down by eroticizing it". Warhol arguably does something similar but in a very American way. There's also the bright colours of Warhol's divas and Hockney's pool paintings, and the fascination with famous, glamorous people in society. But while Hockney developed friendships with many of his subjects, or depicted those he already knew, Warhol always retained a starstruck distance.

One of the most interesting things about this exhibition is how it displays the original Polaroids of many of Warhol's original subjects (although, significantly, he never met Monroe - the ultimate unattainable star), letting you see how his portraits compare. Seeing Liza Minnelli and Debbie Harry as their natural, yet obviously glamorous selves, then as exaggerated colour-saturated works of art was fascinating.

Watching 'This Green and Pleasant Land', a BBC4 documentary about the history of landscape painting reminded me of David Hockney's fascination with new technology. The programme discussed his use of the iPad in creating art, which he regularly sends to his friends (lucky friends), and whether this is a revolutionary way of making art, or if it threatens to destroy it, by removing the idea of the original. You can only imagine what Warhol himself would also be doing with the technology we have today, if he were still alive.

Hockney and Blake Reunited!

Assisting with the preparation of the exhibition 'The Times They Were a Changin': Inspired By Warhol' at Ferens Art Gallery last week (open until 21 October), I was thrilled to see David Hockney's 'Life Painting For Myself' and Peter Blake's 'The Lettermen' reunited after being in storage since last Autumn. I wrote a blog post last Summer for the 'Mr Hockney In Hull' blog, and now seems the perfect time to revisit it. Back then I loved looking at the two paintings, and as the new exhibition also includes my own text and items on display, I fancifully imagine I'm somehow on Hockney and Blake's desert island too in spirit....

More 'Inspired By Warhol' (and Hockney and Blake) posts coming soon.

'Have a Nice Day, Mr Hockney'

Watching Mark Lawson interview Peter Blake on BBC 4 a while back reminded me of the deep friendship between Blake and David Hockney. Having met at the Royal College of Art in the early 1960s, where Hockney was a student and Blake a visiting artist, they have remained close as both of their careers as artists have developed and wherever their lives have taken them, inspiring each other creatively in the process. It was incredibly touching and funny to hear Blake recount how he requested David Hockney as his luxury item on Desert Island Discs and was refused! 

I was very interested in learning more about Hockney and Blake's friendship - not least because visitors to the Ferens' Modern and Contemporary Gallery will know that it houses both Peter Blake's 'The Lettermen' (1963) and Hockney's 'Life Painting For Myself' (1962).  So I tracked down Marco Livingstone's excellent Peter Blake book 'Peter Blake: One Man Show', in which he describes how "the slightly younger artists who arrived as students at the Royal College a few years after his departure...looked up to him as a trailblazer". The book points out how both Hockney and Blake visited LA for the first time around the early Sixties and were both incredibly inspired by it. Livingstone also describes how Blake started painting 'Portrait of David Hockney in a Hollywood Spanish Interior' in 1965 and "was to spend nearly four decades tinkering with the picture from time to time before he finally declared it finished. Hockney, who had owned the painting since 1965 when he exchanged it with Blake for a set of his 'Rake's Progress' etchings but had never taken possession of it, made it a gift to the Tate as soon as Blake told him that it was ready to be handed over." In Livingstone's view, "what one might criticise as unresolved is actually one of its great strengths as it conveys a sense of the vulnerability, tenderness and sensuality that Blake saw in his painter friend, five years his junior. With his shock of dyed blond hair and a still almost childlike fleshy face, and accompanied by the type of handsome young man to whom he was attracted, Hockney is here memorialised not so much as the enfant terrible of the popular press but as an eternally youthful man who experiences life in a heightened state through his eyes and all his senses." 

The book also describes how 'Souvenir for Hockney' (1974), went on to inspire an entire show called '30 Souvenirs', created "both as homages and as gifts for fellow artists..(and) a way of remembering of of keeping those old friends forever by his side".  'The Meeting' or 'Have a Nice Day, Mr Hockney' (1981-3) could perhaps even be considered a souvenir of the their experiences of LA: as Livingstone notes it "deals most overtly with the circumstances of Blake's visit to Hockney in the company of (Howard) Hodgkin. Hockney assumes the role of the master allotted by Courbet to himself in the nineteenth century picture, while Hodgkin is shown rather mischievously as the humble and obsequious servant. Blake presents himself as Hockney's equal, but one who has come to pay him homage." The book concludes how now "that he has experienced his expected 'ration' of three score and ten years, he has cheerfully enjoyed every subsequent day, and every new opportunity to make more art as a bonus...he is no more likely now than ever to lose the childlike sense of fun, spirit of play and adventure, gentle subversiveness and devil-may-care whimsicality that have guided his art-making for more than 60 years." It strikes me that something very similar could be said of Hockney too, and perhaps that's the key to their enduring friendship and their ability to inspire each other. And why Blake wanted Hockney as his desert island luxury item!

You can only imagine how Hockney and Blake would entertain themselves on their desert island (the luxury item Blake was allowed was a gym! Not really a comparable substitute, but more healthy, you might imagine).  But it's lovely to know that at least at the Ferens, Blake and Hockney's early 1960s selves are always marooned together on their own desert island, their whole lives and careers still ahead of them.

*Marco Livingstone has also co-written 'David Hockney: My Yorkshire'.