Gregory, Los Angeles, March 31st 1982

“The moment you make a collage of photographs,” Hockney said, “it becomes something like a drawing.” In February 1982, he began assembling Polaroids into grids to form what he called “joiners,” composite images in which each photograph shows a detail of the subject. The process of selection and juxtaposition produces a more complex, multilayered portrayal than a single photograph, which the artist found “too devoid of life.” Hockney made portraits of his favorite models using this technique (see the composite Polaroids of Celia and Maurice elsewhere in this exhibition), but after a few months he abandoned the rigidity of the grid in favor of freer types of photocollages.