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Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy



The painting “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy” was painted in 1970 – 1971 by the British artist David Hockney. It is an acrylic on canvas which measures 84 x 120”. The title of the painting is inspired by the names of some of David Hockney’s friends. The woman in the painting is a textile designer called Celia Birtwell, who is married to the male in the picture; a fashion designer called Ossie Clark. Hockney was Clark’s best man at their wedding, and they have been friends since the early 1960s. Although Clark got married to a woman, he was in fact a closet queen, a homosexual. He had many affairs with other men while being married to Celia and that became the reason the couple broke up in 1974 and got divorced.

The first thing we notice in the painting is the two persons. One of them is a female, and she is standing in the left side of the painting. She has got a black and red dress on which is absolutely flawless, almost as if it had been ironed. No wrinkles, no dirt, no nothing. She has blonde hair, and looks at the viewer with sort of an innocent and despairing face. Her posture and body language seem strict though, as if she is the dominating one in the painting. On the right side of the painting we see a male sitting on a chair. Unlike the woman, his clothes are wrinkled and casual. He is just kicking back and having a cigarette. His melancholy face and his relaxing posture gives us an attitude of carelessness. On his lap there is a white cat, facing away from the viewer looking out the door of the balcony.

In the left side of the painting, behind the woman, there is a painting. It is hard to tell what the painting is supposed to resemble, but I don’t think that is as important as to its symbolic meaning. On a table in the foreground of the real painting we also see a book and a vase containing what seems to be white lilies. These two objects may also have a symbolic meaning, but I will get back to all the symbolic features later on. Behind the male there is a phone and a funny little lamp.

We can divide the painting in three depths: The foreground containing the vase and a book, the middle containing the persons, the cat, a painting, a phone and a lamp, and finally the background containing the balcony rail and the trees outside the balcony door.
The room as a whole looks like a simple living room with lots of yellow and green colours in it. There are not that many furniture and household accessories in the room. Maybe the two persons have just moved in? The light setting is light and dark at the same time. The sun is shining through the door, but the rooms still seem a bit dark which makes the mood in the room a bit melancholic, and that makes the outside attractive. The only real dark contrast is the clothes they wear, which force the viewer to see them right away at first glance. Last but not least, they are sitting in the golden section, which gives a certain calmness to the eye and the overall composition.

The painting tells us a story about the married couple Mr and Mrs Clark. All in all they seem like your everyday couple. Not joyful, or sad. Just the couple next door. But below the shallow surface there is a story hidden. At the time this painting was painted, Celia Birtwell was pregnant. The white lilies close to Celia in the painting are a symbol of female purity. The book next to the lilies is a symbol of knowledge and wisdom, so Celia seems to be the reasonable one of these two persons. The picture on the wall behind her also tells us that she is a cultivated woman. By paying attention to her body language we see, that she is most likely not an outgoing person. Maybe she is the quiet type. Her then husband was probably the more flamboyant and outgoing type, which is expressed by the phone and the highly decorative lamp next to him. Another symbol of his likely social behaviour is the shutters on the door. The shutter to the left where the woman is standing is closed, but on his side it is wide open. It represents his need to get out; out of the marriage.

The room is dominated by green colours, and with green being a dualistic colour, we can interpret it in two ways. Green is the colour of growth and renewal, which matches Celia’s feelings like a glove. She has hope and an urge to start a nice new long marriage unaware of her husband’s homosexual tendencies. But green is also the colour of envy, trickery and infidelity, which in this case matches Clark’s feelings and doings. Back in the 60 - 70s it was usually marriage before pregnancy. Assuming this couple is married at the time the painting was in progress, Clark got Celia pregnant knowing that he was gay. In the painting you see his legs and feet pointing towards Celia, as if he feels some commitment to Celia. He wants the marriage to stop, because he is gay. But he can’t break away due to his commitment with Celia. He is in a dilemma. But unfortunately not all urban fairytales has a happy ending…