Hockney - The Artist's Eye

The theme of David Hockney's Artist's Eye exhibition in 1981 was in large part to do with how our perception of any image and its value is altered by the stages of reproduction through which it passes. So a postcard of an Old Master is perceived differently from the original (for Hockney with just as much integrity and intrinsic worth) because of the change in material and scale, and because of the knowledge that it is anything but unique and inaccessible to us - we can own it, hold it in our hand, throw it away. He was exploring how modifications like photocopying and photography allowed new layers of perception to be overlaid on an original work and create new forms.

The poster for the exhibition, therefore, contained much of this multi-layered perspective. The image is a photographed re-staging of an original Hockney painting Looking At Pictures On A Screen, in which Hockney himself replaces the original figure of Henry Geldzahler. The posters of the original paintings from the National Gallery - which then appeared in the exhibition - hang on the screen, and close-ups of Hockney's original painted versions of them run along the bottom of the poster. And of course the whole thing was then produced as a four-colour litho print run. Of which I have a copy inscribed and signed by Hockney, which changes the value yet again.

It is one of life's great pleasures to work with someone with this sort of mind.