David Hockney|A Series of Hand Drawn Lithographs from 1979–80

These portraits by David Hockney (1937–2026) were drawn alongside his other Gemini prints of 1979 and 1980 but followed a separate path: they were published fifteen years later, and most in far smaller editions. James Reid and Robert Meyer were among the Gemini printers who worked on them, and Stanley Baden and James Hirahara printed two of the double portraits.

The sitters

Celia Birtwell, the textile designer, was a close friend, and from 1978 she worked as a paid model for Hockney in Los Angeles. Three prints in the series show her. 'Celia Looks' is the smallest: her head, in profile with her hand resting on her chin, fills a sheet of 27 x 27.6 cm. 'Celia Reading' and 'Celia Pondering' are far larger, on sheets of about 69 x 92 cm and 94 x 76 cm. 'Bill Burroughs' portrays the American writer William Burroughs, the author of 'Naked Lunch'. Hockney also drew him in ink in 1980, a drawing later shown at Tate Britain in 2017. In 'Self Portrait' Hockney turned to himself, on a near-square sheet of about 62 x 63 cm. 'Bill and James I' and 'Bill And James II' are double portraits, both landscape sheets of about 80 x 100 cm.

Alongside the Celia and Ann lithographs

Gemini issued 'Celia Amused' and the other 1979 Celia portraits that year, and in 1981 published portraits drawn in 1980, among them 'Celia In An Armchair' and 'William Burroughs'. The Celia prints Gemini published in 1979 and 1981 belong to the 'Celia and Ann Lithographs (Gemini G.E.L. 1979–81)', which share Birtwell as a sitter with this series. Both groups followed 'Friends (Gemini G.E.L. 1976–77)', the portraits of his circle that Hockney drew at Gemini in 1976 and 1977.