Three Things #18

Summer paintings

As I write, it feels like summer has FINALLY arrived in the UK (or in London, at least), so let’s mark the moment with three paintings that celebrate my favourite season:

1. A Bigger Splash by David Hockney

   What a potent and universal image of summer, of 1960s California, of the pleasure of plunging into a cold pool on a blazing hot day. Hockney’s image has entered the cultural lexicon and yet still looks fresh and new on every viewing.

2. Evening Star No III (1917) by Georgia O’Keeffe

   This watercolour is one of several O’Keeffe made of an evening star while living in Texas and the vibrancy of colour and expanse of space evoke the desert landscape she was exploring.

   

3. 1975 (8) (2013) by Noah Davis

   Inspired by a snapshot taken by his mother in Chicago’s South Side during the 1970s, this painting, like Hockney’s, evokes the joy of a pool on a hot hot day. Unlike Hockney, Davis brought a political dimension to his work, showing a segregated pool full of black swimmers.