Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, by David Hockney

David Hockney (born 1937) is by far the best-known and most critically acclaimed British artist of his generation. He is also highly regarded in the United States, where he was based for much of his life before returning to his native Yorkshire (albeit the coast at Bridlington rather than his birth-town of Bradford) in 2005.

Hockney has been an experimenter throughout his career, working with different styles and media and becoming as well-known for his graphic art as for his painting. He has also been highly successful as a photographer and a stage designer.

His “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy” dates from 1970-71, with Hockney taking a full year to complete it. It was painted using acrylics on canvas and measures 305 by 213 centimetres (120 by 84 inches), thus making the subjects virtually life-size.

It is one of a series of double portraits made by Hockney at around that date, the subjects in this case being two people who were well known to him, the fashion designer Ossie Clark (1942-96) and fabric designer Celia Birtwell (born 1941). The couple had met at Salford College of Art in 1960, and David Hockney had known Clark since 1961. 

Clark and Birtwell worked together in a highly successful partnership from 1965 and were very much part of the “Swinging Sixties”, having a client list that included many of the leading figures in music and entertainment. They became lovers and their first son, Albert, was born in 1969. They married when Celia became pregnant with their second son, George, and Hockney was best man at the wedding.

The painting that Hockney began in 1970 therefore portrays his two friends in the early months of their marriage, with Celia showing signs of being pregnant, dressed elegantly in a purple dress with red trimmings. She stands, hand on hip, to the left of an open shuttered door that leads on to a brightly lit balcony on an upper floor of a London terraced house. To the right of the door sits Ossie, slightly slouched, on an office chair. His feet are bare and partly buried in the deep pile of a rug that extends across part of the floor. Percy, a white cat, sits perched on Ossie’s knee.

(It has since been pointed out that the cat is not actually Percy! The couple had two cats and the one in the painting is Blanche, but Hockney thought that “Percy” would sound better in the painting’s title)

It has long been the custom of portrait painters to surround the subject with items that say something about their work or what it is that makes them what they are. However, the viewer would be hard pressed to work out that this couple are just about the hottest thing in town as far as the fashion industry is concerned. Celia’s dress is elegant and functional, but it is not characteristic of either her textiles or Ossie’s designs.

Incidentally, it is interesting to compare this painting with Gainsborough’s “Mr and MrsRobert Andrews”, painted around 1748. The title of Hockney’s work may be a deliberate reference to the earlier work, which also features a young newly-wed couple, albeit with a dog instead of a cat.

The room is minimalist in its furnishing, which is not unsurprising for the time, but this means that few clues can be given that would distinguish this couple from millions of others. On a small plain white table there sits a slender vase of flowers (possibly artificial) and a yellow notebook. Behind Ossie, on the floor, is an ordinary dial telephone and an art deco-style lamp. The only item in the room that seems to betray any degree of lifestyle choice made by the couple is a print on the wall, which happens to be by David Hockney!

The focus therefore comes back to the painting’s subjects, and the somewhat disturbing conclusion, in the mind of the viewer, that they do not seem to be connected in any way apart from happening to be in the same room at the same time. One stands, the other sits; one is dressed formally, the other informally in trousers and a sweater; neither of them looks at the other but at the viewer. 

Percy (or Blanche) is likewise uninterested in either of the subjects, preferring to look out through the open door towards the sunlight. The viewer might also take the hint that the world outside this room has more to offer than this dull room occupied by two un-communicating people.

The impression that is conveyed, namely that these people have little to do with each apart from occupying the same space, no doubt comes in part from the circumstances under which Hockney constructed the painting. The couple posed separately in his studio, with Ossie’s pose being taken from a photograph of him having just got out of bed, which is why he has nothing on his feet. This latter fact may account for why Ossie has a cigarette between his fingers but there is no ashtray in sight; it would seem unlikely that Celia would approve of him dropping ash into the shagpile!

However, it has also been suggested that Hockney is using certain symbols to give other messages. The flowers next to Celia are lilies, which symbolise purity, whereas the cat, on Ossie’s knee, is a symbol of infidelity. At least, those are interpretations that some people accept. But there are other readings that can be made, such as the open doorway, with the sunlight streaming in, symbolising a rift between the couple.

At all events, the marriage did not last with the couple divorcing in 1974, although the two of them continued to have glittering careers in fashion (for a time; Ossie Clark later fell victim to drugs and was eventually murdered). Hockney knew that Ossie Clark was bisexual, and it is believed that the two had been lovers at some time during their friendship. Hockney therefore had a pretty good idea that this marriage was doomed, and clues in the painting are not difficult to spot.

Hockney made a present of the painting to the couple, and whether its message of ultimate separation was appreciated by them can only be guessed at. However, Hockney himself was of the view that the painting may have hastened the rift. He continued to be a good friend to both Celia and Ossie, with Celia posing for a number of portraits after the divorce.

The painting now hangs in Tate Britain, London, where it is one of the most popular of the gallery’s exhibits. In 2005 it was voted number 5 in the “Greatest Painting in Britain” poll held by BBC Radio 4, being the only painting by a living artist in the top ten.

© John Welford