'My Parents' by David Hockney
This audio clip describes the painting My Parents by David Hockney (b.1937).
It has been created for use as part of our primary school resource, The Superpower of Looking, in order to support pupils with blindness or visual impairment to take part in the lessons.
Explore the painting further in our resource, David Hockney paints his parents.
Full audio description text
This double portrait by David Hockney was painted in 1977, in colourful oil paints on a large canvas, nearly 2 metres square. It's very realistic, showing an elderly man and an elderly woman, in a bright light room. They're sitting on folding wooden chairs either side of a piece of turquoise green furniture on wheels – some kind of trolley – that separates them. It stands on a square of pale purple rug on a wooden floor and against a pale blue wall. The top section of the trolley is a cupboard. Its ridged side looks like it hinges forward to open. A few large books are stacked on a shelf beneath. One has the word 'Chardin' – the name of a French painter – on its spine.
On top of the trolley is a tray that fits perfectly. On the tray stands a mirror in a wooden frame which can swivel to change the angle of the glass. It reflects a length of blue-green curtain twisted up onto its curtain pole and a copy of a painting by a famous Italian artist called Piero della Francesca. To the left of the mirror is a vase of colourful tulips, with green leafy stems and red, yellow and pink petals. These flowers are the only touch of homeliness in a scene that is painted with such precision and an eye for detail: it is somehow cold.
The woman sits facing us, bolt upright, her knees pressed tightly together, one brown leather slip-on shoe nudging against the other. Her pale pinkish legs are bare, and she holds her hands in her lap. She wears a simple knee-length sky-blue dress with long sleeves and a high collar. Her white hair is styled in a permanent wave, like a white fluffy cloud. Her face could be kindly if her expression was less stern – her blue eyes are staring straight ahead, her lips unsmiling and clamped together in a tight line.
The man, by contrast, sits sideways on to us. He wears a brown suit, white shirt and tie. He has collar-length steely grey hair brushed back from a side parting with one or two strands coming loose. He is hunched over a book on his lap. Only the tips of his feet in black slip-on ankle boots touch the rug, as if he's itching to get up and walk away.
The man and woman are Laura and Kenneth Hockney, the artist's mother and father, giving this painting its title: My Parents.
