Peter C

David Hockney 1937

Summary

A full-length frontal portrait of a man in a dark suit, painted in a child-like style with an oversized head and long, thin legs, one leg unfinished. He has a red heart on his jacket, with a green shirt underneath and a striped tie. There is a plain white background with the inscription: ‘PETER.C’ in the top right-hand corner. In block capitals, the words 'my friend' can be seen beneath his hand, with ‘PETER’ repeated in the bottom left-hand corner. The words 'who is the m' trail off the right hand side of the canvas. There is possibly an outline of a second figure in the background, to the right. The piece is a tall narrow work consisting of two canvasses joined together, indented from the legs down to give an overall ‘T’ shape.

Display Label

Peter C 1961 David Hockney born 1937 Oil on board The subject of this painting is Peter Crutch, a fellow student at the Royal College of Art. Hockney's love for Peter was unrequited. Previously he had fallen for Cliff Richard. This is an early Pop art painting by Hockney, distinguished by the use of stencilled letters, signs and symbols such as the red heart and Peter C's fashionable clothes. The style is deliberately naive with lots of spontaneous brushwork. Hockney originally intended to paint two portraits of Peter 'but as he stands so beautifully, I joined the two together and did a full-length picture' Purchased 1985.22