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David Hockney
Watercolor for Parade with Two D's / An Evening of French Musical Theatre,
1980-82
watercolor, acrylic, and ink on paper22.25 x 15 in. (56.52 x 30.9 cm)
NEA Purchase
© David Hockney
David Hockney (English, b. 1937)
David Hockney had already established himself as an extraordinary painter and draftsman when, in 1978, he was invited by John Dexter to design the set and costumes for the staging of Parade / An Evening of French Musical Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Beginning with Ubu Roi in 1966, one can trace an ongoing relationship between Hockney’s world of the theatre and his explorations of perception. He has designed sets and costumes for numerous operas at major theatres in the United States and Europe. His vibrant work in theatre design has been noted as a “source of new motifs and stylistic approaches that found their way back to the studio.” For Parade, Hockney combined his inimitable graphic mastery with a supple and playful manipulation of space. In these designs, his marriage of text and image exhibits a celebratory nod to Cubism, yet each is infused with his own exuberant and unmistakable hand. In 1982, Hockney was invited to give his first public lecture devoted to his work for the opera as part of the University Art Museum’s Zeitlin Lecture series (at which time this work was acquired), the text of which was used as the primary research material for the Walker Art Center’s preparation of the exhibition Hockney Paint the Stage.
