Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris

21st June – 23rd October 2017

Visit: 18th August, 2017

The Hypnotist, David Hockney, oil on canvas, 1963

“Hockney also began to experiment with theatricality, as in the 1963 paintings The Hypnotist, Two Friend and Two Curtains, Play within a Play and Closing Scene. This is often a literal theatricality, with curtains and staged spaces.” 1.

It is at the David Hockney retrospective at the Georges Pompidou, that I first got to see the painting The Hypnotist, a work made in the early stages of Hockney’s long career. A gold frame encompasses a green curtain, which marks the stage, the setting of the work. There are two male figures in the picture plane facing one another. The Hypnotist to the left of the image in furious concentration, hands raised and to the right a ruddy cheeked, blond and younger male in red. The chasm between them is transgressed by the concentration of The Hypnotist made visible in a white bodily form and lightning bolt which physically connects to the brilliant blue eyes of the youth.

Categories: 2017, And Yet There Was Art! Austria 1914-1918, Artist / Curator, City, David Hockney, George Pompidou Centre, Paris