The lifelong friendship between Hockney and master printer Maurice Payne began in London in the mid-1960s, when they worked together on the etching suite Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy (1967). They continued to collaborate on significant print projects until the late 1970s.
In 1998, after a hiatus of twenty years, they again worked together when Maurice set up a print studio in Los Angeles. To encourage Hockney, he would take pre-prepared etching plates up to the artist’s house in the Hollywood Hills, then bring them back down to the printing press he had set up in Hockney’s studio in West Hollywood. Working from life, Hockney drew still lifes and portraits of friends. These intimate drawings created in the domestic setting of his home contrast with the monumental landscapes of the American West he was painting in his studio at the time.
Artwork: © David Hockney