Nehemiah Checking the Walls of Jerusalem by David Hockney

Provenance:
Laura Hockney
Paul Miranda
Albert White Gallery, Toronto
Canadian Corporate Collection

Exhibited:
“David Hockney: Drawings and Prints”, Davis & Long Company, New York, 7-25 June 1976, no. 10

Literature:
David Hockney, “David Hockney”, London, 1977, page 124, reproduced page 136

Although he was not known as a religious artist, David Hockney was asked in the mid‒1960s to do biblical drawings. He describes the project as follows, “In 1966 I did some drawings for the Oxford Illustrated Bible. They’d asked a few artists, emphasizing that you didn’t have to be a Christian; they didn’t expect you to be pious. So I agreed to do it. Mine was the Book of Nehemiah, about the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the original drawings are done all on one page like a comic strip. I did them quite quickly. They make no references to anything; they’re completely made up out of my head. I used Muybridge to help draw the figures if there was a difficult pose. They’re just simple and direct. My mother, a keen Christian, has them now."

Interestingly, Hockney references Eadweard Muybridge for this series, a pioneering nineteenth century photographer who was obsessed with capturing movement and motion in humans and animals. Here the two posed figures appear to float on a simplified dais set in a stripped-down background. Hockney’s quick but reserved use of black lines does give the work an illustrative cartoon-like quality. On closer inspection, we find in the lower right corner a dedication to Paul Miranda for his birthday. Paul came into Hockney’s life and would become an important subject in his work of the following years.