Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy [SEP] creator
Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy
Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy is a painting by the British artist David Hockney. Painted between 1970 and 1971, it depicts the fashion designer Ossie Clark and the textile designer Celia Birtwell in their flat, shortly after their wedding, with one of the couple's cats on Clark's knee. The white cat depicted in the painting was Blanche; Percy was another of their cats, but Hockney thought "Percy" made a better title.
Background.
The work is part of
to painting portraits throughout his career. From 1968, and for the next few years, he painted portraits and double portraits of friends, lovers, and relatives just under life size in a realistic style that adroitly captured the likenesses of his subjects. Hockney has repeatedly been drawn to the same subjects – his family, employees, artists Mo McDermott and Maurice Payne, various writers he has known, fashion designers Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark ("Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy", 1970–71), curator Henry Geldzahler, art