The sitter is Mo McDermott, an artist himself, who met David Hockney in 1962. Mo was Hockney’s boyfriend for a time, and they remained close with Mo working as his assistant during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He has been described as one of the artist’s most loyal companions and has a prominent role in Jack Hazan’s documentary feature on the artist 'A Bigger Splash' (1973). Mo was also responsible for introducing Hockney to his most important female muse, the textile artist Celia Birtwell, who had been a friend of Mo's since they met studying art at Salford Technical College.

This drawing was made at Hockney’s flat at 17 Powis Terrace in Notting Hill. Hockney had moved there in 1962, after signing a three year contract with art dealer John Kasmin, establishing a studio in the flat’s biggest room. This work is dated 1968, and was most likely made in the second half of the year as Hockney was in Santa Monica at the beginning of the year completing his double portraits of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy and Fred and Marcia Weisman. Hockney returned to London in the summer, from where he travelled to Paris, the South of France, Cornwall and Northern Ireland. In the autumn of 1968, Hockney’s boyfriend Peter Schlessinger enrolled at the Slade School of Art and moved into Powis Terrace with him, so London was once again Hockney’s base.

Hockney made many drawings of Mo. He often drew his friends and collaborators while they were reading (or sleeping) as it helped them keep still, see for example Artist’s Father Reading at a Table, 1972 and Henry Salzburg, 1976, which were both exhibited in the recent exhibition ‘Love Life: David Hockney Drawings 1963-1977’ at the Holburne Museum in Bath. Hockney would sometimes give his drawings to Mo. To deter him from selling another drawing made of him in 1968, Hockney wrote on the front ‘Mo this is a terrible drawing. NOT FOR SALE. DH.’ 1

The beginning of 1966 marked the start of a twelve year period during which Hockney focused on making large portraits, painted with a high degree of realism. This re-orientation in his practice necessitated a shift in his work as a draughtsman and from 1965 he began an intensive period of drawing using pen and ink, a rare choice for a contemporary artist. By the end of the 1960s Hockney had become extremely proficient in this medium, and his drawings are notable for their strong linear appearance and the sophisticated use of cross-hatching and shading in areas of detail such as the face. In an interview in 1970 the artist declared ‘…if you want to work in line I think that it is the loveliest medium of all.’ 2

The task of working in ink however, was extremely demanding, as he explained:

‘I never talk when I am drawing a person, especially if I’m making line drawings. I prefer there to be no noise at all so I can concentrate more. You can’t make a line too slowly, you have to go at a certain speed; so the concentration needed is quite strong. It’s very tiring as well. If you make two or three line drawings, it's very tiring in the head, because you have to do it all at one go, something you’ve no need to do with pencil drawings…Its exciting doing it, and I think it's harder than anything else; so when they succeed, they’re much better drawings, often.’ 3

1 Mo Seated, 1968, ink on paper, 43 x 35.5 cm., Private Collection, USA courtesy of Offer Waterman, London
2 'David Hockney: An Interview', David Hockney, Paintings, Prints and Drawings 1960-1970, Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 1970, p12
3 Nikos Stangos, David Hockney by David Hockney, My Early Years, Thames and Hudson, London, 1976, p158