One Wish
One wish Matthias Weischer did voice was to watch Hockney at work. That was in the early summer of 2004, and, while patently intrigued to be setting out in uncharted waters with a promising young colleague, Hockney gave no immediate assurance that that wish would come true.
First Steps
First, Hockney whisked Weischer off for a personal tour of London, where – as in Los Angeles – he maintains a home and studio. First stop: the Royal Academy of Arts, in Piccadilly, for a sneak preview of the Summer Exhibition, an annual blockbuster to which Hockney had contributed six exuberant oversize watercolours from Andalusia.
Next stop: the National Portrait Gallery, steps off Trafalgar Square, where the permanent collection includes Hockney’s portrait of his formidable senior, Lucian Freud, while a retrospective of photographs by the fashionable Cecil Beaton captured Hockney in his gilded youth: the same gentle giant though shyer, a soft wave to his neatly cropped hair, the face round, the spectacles owlish, the eyes discreet, yet missing nothing.