My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean

Etched in the summer of 1961 to commemorate his first visit to New York, My Bonnie lies over the Ocean records Hockney's nostalgia for a lover left behind in England. The artist casts himself in the role of a diminutive King Kong, standing atop a tall skyscraper (or flag pole), and bearing the Stars and Stripes. His voice calls out a refrain from the popular Scottish folk song across a turbulent sea of scratchy lines towards the shores of home, signified by a Union Jack, towards the object of his longing, the idealized profile of a young man. The American flag dwarfs the diminutive Union Jack and, vividly coloured, it suggests the artist's infatuation with all things American. The figure of George Washington, his head collaged from a 1 cent postage stamp, can be seen at the lower right, extending his hand in a friendly American handshake. Hockney, recalling his interest in America at the time, said 'I'd begun to be interested in America from a sexual point of view; I'd seen American 'Physique Pictorial' magazines which I found when I first came to London. And they were full of what I thought were very beautiful bodies, American, and I thought, very nice, that's the real thing. And I went to New York and met a boy in a drugstore in Times Square and stayed with him for three months'. (David Hockney by David Hockney, Thames & Hudson, London, 1974, p. 65)