Collages

Renowned British painter David Hockney has always been fascinated by photography, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that he formally experimented with the medium. In his photographic collages, which he calls “joiners,” Hockney creates composite images out of photographs, first as grids of polaroids and later in more organic, overlapping constructions. To make these collages, Hockney captured scenes from multiple vantage points and meticulously pieced them together, offering varied perspectives within a single work—an art historical nod to the cubist collages of Pablo Picasso and George Braque. Some of these joiners center on Hockney’s typical subject matter—the swimming pools of Los Angeles, his mother, his friends—while others portray distorted landscapes and still lifes. Collage allowed Hockney to play not only with perspective but also with scale—many of his collages measure over five feet in length and can contain hundreds of photographs.