David Hockney: Portraits in Print reveals lesser-known aspects of the celebrated artist

National Gallery of Australia I first fell under the spell of David Hockney’s prints as a student of printmaking and life drawing.

Australia had been my home for only a few years and I found a key to my experience of movement and growth in the series A Rake’s Progress (1961–63), completed after Hockney’s first journey from London to New York and back.

There was something about images such as The Arrival – with its promise of a new world, etched in floral plumes of red ink and spidery black lines dancing on the edge of incoherence – that felt so familiar.

This feeling of familiarity resurfaced as I stepped into David Hockney: Portraits in Print at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), which features images from that early series of etchings among more than 50 works.

Opening in the wake of Hockney’s death in June , Portraits in Print is an affectionately curated snapshot of three decades in Hockney’s six-decade career.

This is not the only Hockney show in Australia this year, with an “immersive” presentation of his work opening in Sydney in October.

But Portraits in Print reveals a lesser-known side to an artist famous for colourful, light-filled paintings, such as Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) and the 1960s Splash trio.

Portrait of Mother III (1984-86) by David Hockney (artist), Tyler Graphics (printer and publisher). © Estate of David Hockney Portraiture was a key element of Hockney’s practice, however, and the NGA exhibition showcases his ability to capture subtle expressions of self in all their diversity.

The NGA’s Hockney holdings are due in large part to the artist’s collaboration with master print maker Kenneth E.

Tyler, who worked with some of the biggest names in the North American art world from the 1960s until 2001.

Most of the works in Portraits in Print are drawn from the Kenneth E.

Tyler Collection , founded in 1973 when the inaugural NGA director, James Mollison, purchased a set of proofs and drawings from Tyler’s celebrated Gemini G.E.L. print workshop.

Tyler himself appears in a standout lithograph and screenprint Hockney created in the same year, The master printer of Los Angeles , exuding quiet confidence in his aviator sunglasses and printer’s apron.

A master of intimate detail Portraits in Print also showcases other printers and publishers who worked with Hockney.