David Hockney was brought up amidst the whippets and chiffon mufflers of industrial Bradford. He knew he wanted to be an artist from a very early age (possibly the Renaissance?) and was given every encouragement by his accountant and amateur artist dad and devoted mum, who regularly lent him her face for portrait practice.
After leaving art school he realised that he'd much prefer to meet strangers and help them (rather than kill them) so he saw out his National Service in a hospital. In 1959 he began attending the Royal College Of Art but, failing to encounter a single royal, he made friends with R. B. Kitaj, who turned out to be far more intelligent and talented anyway. In 1961 David went to America for the first time and was so shocked by the outlandish lifestyle and culture he encountered in New York that his hair turned completely white overnight. It has remained so ever since (comes of being the sensitive arty type).
As the swinging sixties got under way he wowed everyone at the 1961 Young Contemporaries Exhibition, went from success to success and had fun with some buns. In the minds of many people he is still associated with that era and is often incorrectly described as a Pop Artist, despite having categorically stated that he isn't and that he is terrified of 'movements', averring that he will always choose to go in the opposite direction to 'the crowd' (thereby causing absolute chaos on busy escalators and crowded freeways).
In 1963 David returned to America, this time visiting dreary and lacklustre California, no doubt finding it something of a disappointment after the sun, sea and sexual hedonism of his native Bradford. Nevertheless, accepting that painful sacrifices must be made if great art is to be created, he bit the bullet of fate and made his home in Los Angeles, grappling heroically with all sorts of hardships like mountains of money, swanky studios, cars flashy and swimming pools splashy.
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