Hockney comes to Greenham

Hollywood montage on show at The Base in new year

HOLLYWOOD meets West Berkshire as a major photomontage by Britain’s most famous living artist David Hockney comes to The Base, Greenham, from Friday, January 8, until Sunday, January 31.

The Hockney and Hollywood exhibition features an extraordinary life-sized nude photographic study of Theresa Russell by Hockney. The Yorkshire born artist was commissioned by his friend, Hollywood film director Nicolas Roeg, to create the montage for the movie Insignificance, which starred his then wife Theresa Russell as Marilyn Monroe.

The film is a comedy, set in a New York hotel in the 1950s, and tells the story of four icons of the era as they discuss life, death, sex and the universe. It took Hockney four attempts with a Pentax to capture the images he wanted to create the stunning Nude, 17th June 1984.

Roeg documented Hockney at work on the piece; photographing the artist as he prepared the scene, the assistants as they applied make up and Hockney taking the posed shots. These photographs give a unique and intimate never before seen ‘behind the scenes’ look at Hockney that make up an integral part of the exhibition, as one artist observes another.

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