Freda Bringing Ann & Me A Cup Of Tea

A composite image, this signed photographic print by world-famous British artist David Hockney is an example of the artist’s ‘joiner’ artworks, or Photo Collages collection of works. Using photography in a unique and inventive way, Hockney overlays numerous images in order to stretch the artistic potential of the medium, with which by the early ‘80s he had become bored. Venting his frustration at an otherwise ‘lifeless’ photography by bringing together a multitude of different moments in one piece, Hockney remarked that he did not care whether this new compositional process was ‘art, or not’. Rather, Hockney argued that it taught him valuable lessons about art, particularly the importance of diverse ways of seeing. Expressing a multitude of movement, colour, shape, perspective, and light, this image is testament to these important lessons, containing significantly greater depth than the photographs which Hockney often used as an aid for his paintings. At the bottom of the piece, Hockney’s brown trousers anchor our view into his own. Unlike that afforded by the singular photograph, this perspective is dynamic: it morphs as we cast our eye across the page, unravelling the time-based constraints which irritated Hockney so much. Capturing a friend’s movement as she brings cups of tea down a small flight of stairs, Hockney uses his eye to liberate her from the singularity of the photograph. At the top right of the composition, Hockney includes a hand-written note from the film developers, apologising for over-exposing some of the photographs during their chemical processing.