Viareggio

After leaving the Royal College of Art in 1962, Hockney travelled to Italy with his American friend Jeff Goodman. This drawing shows the word 'VIAREGGIO', referring to the Tuscan city. This use of presenting words in his art is typical of Hockney's art of the early 1960s and borrows from popular advertising. In 1976 Hockney reflects on his use of words in his art, 'One reason for using writing on paintings is that it makes you go and look at the picture in another way. ... My intention was to force you to go and look closely at the canvas itself, and then in that sense it's naughty because it's robbed you of what you were thinking before, and you've to look at it another way' (see N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney by David Hockney, London, 1976, p. 61).