David Hockney will be in the spotlight at London’s National Gallery this autumn in a small-scale display featuring two of his works depicting Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (around 1437–45). Hockney’s pieces—My Parents (1977) and Looking at Pictures on a Screen (1977)— will go on display at the gallery alongside the original 15th-century painting by Piero from 8 August.
Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ (around 1437-45) © The National Gallery, London
Piero della Francesca’s work depicts Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan as angels watch on, setting the scene in his hometown, Sansepolcro, in Tuscany. The painting is anchored by a line of symmetry which, according to a film shown on the National Gallery’s YouTube channel, “leads our eyes to heaven”. Piero, who was also a mathematical theorist, was the first artist to write a treatise on perspective De prospectiva pingendi (from a painting perspective, around 1474) which discussed, among other technical topics, creating an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. It also discusses techniques for painting faces.
David Hockney, My Parents, 1977 © David Hockney. Photo: Tate, London
In Hockney’s My Parents, a reproduction of Piero’s The Baptism of Christ is reflected in a mirror on a trolley behind the artist’s parents, Kenneth and Laura Hockney. In 2014 the work was voted the UK’s favourite work of art in a poll for a scheme called Art Everywhere, which was backed by the Art Fund charity. Looking at Pictures on a Screen shows Hockney’s close friend Henry Geldzahler—the late Belgian-born US curator of 20th-century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—looking at a folding screen in the artist’s studio. Four posters of celebrated National Gallery works, including The Baptism of Christ, are affixed to the screen.
David Hockney, Looking at Pictures on a Screen, 1977, private collection © David Hockney
Susanna Avery-Quash, the project’s lead curator, says in a statement: “As part of the [National Gallery’s] bicentenary celebrations [NG200], this focus display draws attention to the powerful if hidden story of the National Gallery as a catalyst in the creative life of the nation through its encouragement of contemporary artists to draw inspiration from its collection.”
The planned Hockney initiative follows the critically acclaimed two-hander display dedicated to Caravaggio which features The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (1610) and Salomé with the Head of John the Baptist (1609-10), until 21 July.