It was 49 years ago that I first interviewed David Hockney. I still have the 1977 handwritten letter he sent me at school inviting me to his studio in Powys Terrace, Notting Hill. I was 16 and starstruck. At the top floor of several flights of stairs was a transformative oasis of light and, waiting at the door, was the peroxide blonde bombshell that was David Hockney. Smoking and beyond charming and funny and irreverent, his Yorkshire accent and charisma were as palpable as his art. His gripe then was not restrictions on smoking but the restrictive opening hours of English pubs and bars compared to 24-hour freedom in America. Ever the radical libertarian.
His autobiography had recently come out, and he was very much art’s ultimate rock star. His paintings and drawings dazzled as he infectiously explained to me his lifelong simple doctrine of art depicting beauty. His then boyfriend Gregory Evans was an Adonis-like presence as David talked and talked. His garrulous open charm concealed steely ambition and focus.
