Years before he was a modern art megastar, long before the cool pop perfection that would make him one of the most popular painters of the past century, David Hockney was a student. Some of his early works from this period have been brought together at a small but perfectly formed exhibition, curated by Louis Kasmin, grandson of John Kasmin, the dealer who first spotted Hockney.
After leaving the Bradford School of Art, Hockney showed up at the RCA in 1959 ready to kick the art world’s doors in. But this is not the Hockney the world knows now. There is no simplicity, no calm. There are no cool, flat planes of bright colour. Rather, young Hockney was a frantic, angry, tempestuous thing.
