As in a still life painting of fruit by Paul Cezanne, the viewer is shown everything, even if it means contorting the truth for a better view. A zigzag of wood grain belies the notion of actual perspective. The collage titled The Desk, July 1st 1984, (NU)8 is a beauty. Depth swirls in and out, the disjointed matching of floorboards becomes an optical weave and the suspension cables reach out like spider webs. Sometimes a floating of an overall image within a frame - for example, the marvelous view of the Brooklyn Bridge - causes the collage to pounce upon the senses. Scale and texture transform a lovely Zen garden in Kyoto, Japan, into a montage of singular recollections. The landscape ensembles are the most successful. Far removed from the delicate, often pastel-hued drawings and paintings he's noted for, Hockney appears to revel in the bold chromatics of the prints and the clarity of vision the colors provide. Composed of integral parts that form a matrix, the still life is the memory of the toy, not a photographic record.Ĭolor, composition and the subtle juxtaposition of the photo elements making up each whole are always carefully handled by Hockney. Toy Horse, Paris, August 10th 1985 is pure cubist still life. A fleeting moment is more the implication, as Hockney recalls the encounter more than the viewer can. Facial features are distorted and the effect of a likeness is difficult to establish. A figure sits in a chair, while jagged, almost crystalline 'edges' cause the shape to jitter and pulsate.

Many are reminiscent of the cubist portraits of Picasso. One encounters fragmented images of friends in California, including film director Billy Wilder and his wife. People - ostensibly portraits - make up a large part of the show.

Cubism photo