David Hockney

Speaker 40:01

BBC Sounds Music, Radio, Podcasts.

David Hockney0:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:24

This week, our castaway is the artist David Hockney.

Presenter0:28

Are you a Gorgetis man?

Presenter0:30

Very, yes.

Presenter0:31

Could you endure isolation? Not really. No, I'd I'd I'd really hate it, I think.

David Hockney0:33

Uh

Presenter0:37

Is music an important part of your life?

Presenter0:39

Yes, I mean I play it every day. I play it when I work and uh

Presenter0:44

I actually listen to it a lot. Yeah, I would think it's very yes. No, no, no. I don't know anything about music. I just play record, yeah.

David Hockney0:50

Yeah, but

Presenter0:55

What qualities have you looked for in selecting your eight records?

Presenter0:59

Well, most of them are just pieces of beautiful music, what I consider beautiful music. I mean, uh I think maybe there's one or two of them that were prompted by events or memories of uh place or a thing or a person, but most of them are simply just bits of music that I thought I'd like to hear.

Presenter1:20

What's the first one? And the first one is how Beethoven's Fifth Symphony played on the piano in the List version, which

David Hockney1:27

Good.

Presenter1:28

I actually think it's quite amusing as well when I first heard it, which isn't too long ago, I I kept laughing.

Presenter1:34

Uh which isn't usual for Beethoven, but I did enjoy it.

Presenter2:35

Glenn Gould playing the list transcription of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. What's your second record?

David Hockney2:40

Secret.

Presenter2:41

The second one is a piece of Eric Satis called La Belle Exantrique. That's just a very beautiful bit of piano music, I think. And I like Satis music. I love his although this title is rather ordinary. Some of his titles are rather terrific and very, very witty.

Presenter2:58

And I kind of like wit in art.

Presenter3:30

The opening of Eric Sati's La Belle Ex-Entrique, played by Aldo Ciccolini.

Presenter3:35

What part of the North Country do you come from, David?

Presenter3:39

When did you first start taking a special interest in drawing and painting? How old were you?

Presenter3:44

Well, I would think I was about ten when I decided that I wanted to be an artist. Maybe even younger, I don't know. I'm sh I'm positive when I was ten I knew that, yeah. Was that anybody's influence or entirely your idea?

Presenter3:58

Well, I would think it was mine. I mean, I can't remember. Later on, of course, people encouraged me. Oh, yes, later on. But uh I think at the time one just decided that's what you want to do. I mean I kept changing my mind. For all I know I might have

David Hockney4:05

Really?

Presenter4:13

Kept thinking maybe I'd be an engine driver, but I didn't.

Speaker 44:15

Yeah.

Presenter4:16

At Bradford Grammar School, you had a reputation as a non-conformist. You eased out of what you didn't want to do. Yes, I didn't like I mean, I didn't enjoy school at all. I hated it really. You moved on to Bradford School of Art. Had you any clear idea what you wanted to do in art?

Presenter4:32

Well, no, I mean I was a very naive little sixteen year old schoolboy. Went to the art school and uh when they asked me what I I just said, Oh, I want to be an artist and they asked me

Presenter4:45

If I had a private income and I said I didn't know what that was and they said well if you've not got one you can't be an artist because you'll never make a living at it but I thought that was really bad to start discouraging innocent 16 year olds so I took no notice.

David Hockney5:00

Yeah.

Presenter5:02

What about your family? Did did they discourage you towards this very precarious form of existence? No, no. In a sense, I think I was quite lucky there, because perhaps a lot of other parents would have been more practical and said, oh, you can't do that, really.

David Hockney5:07

No.

Presenter5:17

Oh, you should do this. You see, they didn't. They they just thought, well, maybe it's a good idea to be an artist and never gave it another thought.

Presenter5:24

And then you won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London, but before that you had to do your natural service. I worked for two years in a hospital, yes, in Bradford and then in Hastings. Did that seem a serious hold-up, or was it an opportunity to adjust your ideas? I must admit, I thought it was a bit of a waste of time. But then, on the other hand, when I went back to art school, I used the time perhaps more eagerly and worked perhaps a bit harder. Yes, you were a more senior student. Yes, I was two years older and

David Hockney5:51

Yeah.

Presenter5:56

So maybe it wasn't too bad, but I mean I really didn't enjoy it, I must admit.

Presenter6:01

While you were a student at the RCA, you were already exhibiting and selling pictures.

Presenter6:06

Yes, after I'd been there about a year, I began slowly. I mean, I just sold a few to begin with and just really supplemented my grams at the time. You had a good send-off from the Royal College. You won the gold medal. Yes. And to receive it, you wore a gold lame coat. Yeah, well, it's not really gold, but their medal wasn't gold either. I think it's just covered in gold leaf.

Presenter6:32

That's a terrible letter. Let's have your third record.

David Hockney6:35

That's

Presenter6:37

Oh, this is just nearly the end of the Master Singers of Nuremberg, Hans Sachs' song about art. It's just art about art, and I quite like that.

Presenter7:30

But here I see her side, I might

Presenter7:46

Teo Adam as Hans Sachs in the Meistersinger. After you finished your studies, success came fairly easily. The dealers wanted your pictures. Do you think that gold lame jacket helped? I mean, publicity is always important. I mean, had that got you talked about? I don't know. I mean, I think I had to live it down, really. So I don't think it did.

David Hockney8:04

Really? Uh

Presenter8:07

Um

Presenter8:09

I think, like, in painting, it's not as important, really, because

Presenter8:14

The audience for painting is, one must remember, very small and it really only affects a small number of people. And even in those days, if you only do

David Hockney8:21

People

Presenter8:23

ten pictures a year, all you have to do is find ten people who'll buy them, which really isn't very many, is it?

Presenter8:29

A lot of your early work was cheerfully disrespectful to the art scene in general, wasn't it?

Presenter8:35

Yes, yes.

Presenter8:37

You were given a label of a leader of British pop art. This hardly seems accurate. You weren't painting soup cans or doing collage of advertisements and that sort of thing. No, I did a some paintings of a packet of tea, which probably caused that really. Um but uh

Presenter8:55

I don't think I mean, I've always thought of myself as a rather ordinary artist, really.

Presenter9:01

Yes, last year you had a a retrospective exhibition, which is unusual enough for an artist in his early thirties. Didn't the pattern of change through that ten years seem to have a a regular curve?

Presenter9:14

Well, I must admit when I saw the exhibition, which I'd had nothing to do with organising really, and I'd not seen it when they were hanging it up, because I'd been in France until the day it opened.

Presenter9:27

I must admit I was really rather apprehensive about it, thinking the early pictures just wouldn't stand up and they'd be a bit thin and things. And I must admit, even I was slightly impressed with it only because I saw that there was a continuity in the work, which you can only see if you can look back at ten years' work. I mean, if you can look back at photographs would be sufficient, but I never keep records. I don't keep photographs. I keep a few slides. I never get them out. I don't keep press cuttings or anything. So that was my first chance to look at it all.

Presenter10:04

Do you like teaching?

Presenter10:05

No. You've done quite a lot of it? Well, not too much really. I taught in England for a very short time. I taught etching at the art school in Maidstone in nineteen sixty two.

Presenter10:16

And then I taught in America in various places, but only for very short times.

David Hockney10:20

Yeah.

Presenter10:21

You travel a lot. You used to spend a lot of time in the United States. Now I believe you head towards Europe more often. Yes, yeah. California's lost a lot of its poetry for me, so I don't go back as much really.

Presenter10:34

Let's have your next record. Uh well my next record is just a bit of les biche by Poulenc.

Presenter10:40

The sets for this ballet I think are really beautiful by Marie Laurenton. They do it at Covent Garden in the replica of her sets and it's very, very pretty.

Presenter11:50

An excerpt from the Poulang Ballet Suite Les Bich.

Presenter11:54

played by the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra conducted by Roger Desomier.

Presenter11:59

How do you work David? Do you try to work regular hours in your studio?

Presenter12:03

Reasonably. I mean, I I work every day, yes.

Presenter12:07

ten or twelve pictures a year. You are a slow painter.

Presenter12:10

They take quite a long time to do, yes. So your annual exhibition doesn't take a long time to walk around? No.

David Hockney12:12

Yeah.

David Hockney12:16

I mean

Presenter12:17

This surely produces an admirable scarcity value that there must be a waiting list o of buyers for your next picture. Yes, I suppose there is. At several thousand pounds each.

David Hockney12:25

Uh

Presenter12:27

Now this portrait of the late Sir David Webster, a famous picture because it was reproduced so much, a very good likeness of Sir David, who's sitting on a rather spindly, metal-legged chair looking across a big bunch of tulips, and he only occupies about, what, 8 or 9% of the camera.

Presenter12:45

10% I'd think. In fact, I spent probably longer painting the tulips than I did him, but

David Hockney12:51

But um

Presenter12:53

Uh it was it was just very, very difficult doing first of all, you see, I really don't know him, I didn't know him, and uh it just makes a difference in a way to me. I in the end he's actually sat in my studio. The setting is my studio, that's just a Mies van der Rohe chair and a

Presenter13:12

table, the glass table and the flowers are were just there, really.

Presenter13:17

You move in a male world and that's the world that you like to paint. Women rarely feature in your work.

Presenter13:23

Very rarely. I I did a painting of uh

Presenter13:27

girl and her husband, Ozzy Clark and his wife. And I've drawn his wife quite a lot actually. I must have done two dozen drawings of her. She's very beautiful.

David Hockney13:35

Directly.

Presenter13:37

That's how your fifth record, what does that have to be? Uh uh it's Jeanette McDonald singing San Francisco, which is actually this is only because it's about California and uh

Presenter13:48

I think this is a very uh pretty song and really I liked it because it used to be sung by a marvellous drag queen in a bar.

Presenter13:55

which isn't there anymore in San Francisco and he actually uh looked like her in the film and on a swing and swung out into the bar. It was really terrific.

Speaker 214:08

Francisco, open your golden gate. You let no stranger wait outside your door. Sim Francisco, here is your wandering one. Say, I wonder no more.

Speaker 214:30

Other places only make me know you better

Presenter14:36

Jeanette MacDonald. Let's go straight on to record number six.

Presenter14:39

Oh, this is the beginning of a rather kind of marvellous corny opera by Giordano.

Presenter14:46

Fedora

Presenter14:47

I play it about once every four weeks when I'm working and it's kind of luscious sound.

Presenter15:54

The opening of Giordano's Fedora.

Presenter15:57

A performance conducted by Lamberto Gardelli.

Presenter16:01

Are you a practical person, David?

Presenter16:03

You could build a shelter.

Presenter16:05

I suppose so, yes, I could. And live off the land.

David Hockney16:06

Uh

Presenter16:08

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I'd manage.

Presenter16:11

Can you fish?

Presenter16:12

No, I've never fished, but I suppose I'd I I'd I think I could manage. I'd somehow find a way.

Presenter16:19

Would you try to escape?

Presenter16:20

Oh, immediately, yes.

Presenter16:22

You know anything about navigation, smaller.

David Hockney16:24

Um

Presenter16:25

I think I'd try rather than stay on the island. A desperate attempt.

Presenter16:30

Good luck. Let's have record number seven. This is just

Presenter16:34

Really beautiful, Melon Munro singing I'm Through with Love.

Presenter16:39

Very touching.

Speaker 416:40

I'm through with love, I'll never fall again Said adieu to love, don't ever call again

Speaker 416:51

For a must-have him.

Speaker 416:53

Underwood.

Speaker 416:56

And so I'm through with love.

Speaker 417:01

I've locked my heart, I'll keep my feelings there I've stuffed my heart with icy

Presenter17:09

Marilyn Munro, I'm through with love. And now we come to your last record. Well, it's almost the same thing really, I suppose, in its just high art form. And it's the end of Tristan and Isolda, the Lieberstad, sung by Birgit Nielsen. And she's really just singing that she's through with love as well.

Presenter18:27

Birget Nielsen

Presenter18:29

and the deepest heard from Tristan and Disaude.

Presenter18:32

Wonders got to the eight. Which would it be? I think I I suppose I'd take the last one really.

Presenter18:39

And one luxury to take with you?

Presenter18:41

Uh some paper and some pencils and a battery operated pencil sharpener.

Presenter18:46

Right.

Presenter18:48

And one book. You already have the Bible and Shakespeare. Well, I decided the only kind of book you'd really want to read and reread a lot really would be a pornographic book.

Presenter18:59

Otherwise, you might fantasise too much on the island. So, I've chosen Route 69 by Floyd Carter, which I think is out of print now, but I think it was written by a little man in an office on 42nd Street, and it's full of bad grammar and spelling mistakes, but quite touching in a way, and it covers a great deal of interesting things. Yes, Floyd Carter doesn't sound somehow like a real name, and I'm sure you can't get it at your local library. And thank you, David Hockney, for letting us hear your Desert Island disc. Okay, thank you. Goodbye, everyone.