Bigger Trees Near Warter

The painting itself was essentially completed in one breathless, three-week sprint that left Hockney’s assistant, Jean-Pierre, looking exhausted and the painter himself exhilarated. Both had grown beards; as a result Hockney slightly resembled Cézanne.

David Hockney's Bigger Trees Near Warter, York Art Gallery, Exhibition Square, York, Yorkshire, Y01

“The painting had to be done in one go. Once I started, I had to carry on until it was finished,” says Hockney.

York Art Gallery, Exhibition Square, York, Yorkshire, Y01

“The deadline wasn’t the Royal Academy. The deadline was the arrival of spring, which changes things. The motif is one thing in winter, but in summer it’s one solid mass of foliage – so you can’t see inside and it’s not as interesting to me.”

York Museum Gardens, York, Yorkshire, Y01

From Martin Gayford’s The Bigger Picture, The Telegraph (May 2007)

National Portrait Gallery

It’s painful and very exhausting.

Irving Penn's Rudolf Nureyev, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, Westminster, WC2H

It’s a kind of surgery…

Irving Penn's Al Pacino, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, Westminster, WC2H

…you cut an incision into their lives, you move into their circumstances…

Irving Penn's Duchess of Windsor, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, Westminster, WC2H

…and then you pin them down while you penetrate even further into their personalities.

National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, Westminster, WCH2

It’s the most painful kind of photography and after almost every sitting I wish I hadn’t gotten into that kind of thing.

David Hockney's Self Portrait, National Gallery, St Martin's Place, Westminster, WC2H

It’s a matter of controlling a person and yet wanting not to control him too much so that he can still reveal something that is true of himself.

Ronald Traeger's Twiggy, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, Westminster, WC2H

By Irving Penn