‘Cubism was about the destruction of a fixed way of looking. A fixed position implies we are standing still, that even our eye is still. Yet we all know our eyes move constantly, and the only time they stop moving is when we’re dead - or when we’re staring. And if we’re staring we’re not really looking. That is the problem with the single-frame photograph: all you can actually do is stare at it. Your eyes cannot wander around in it, because of its inherent lack of time.’

Between 1961 and 1981 David Hockney compiled over 100 photo albums, containing around 20,000 photographs. In these albums Hockney would carefully arrange his prints in double page spreads of typically 6 or 8 photographs, their sequential arrangement suggesting a narrative similar to stills from a film. These photographs were an intimate record of family and friends, they also provided valuable information for paintings but, despite his prolific output, Hockney did not see photography as a vehicle for his art, finding it too instantaneous - the lack of duration offering an image that he felt was lifeless. Nevertheless, outside interest in Hockney’s photography grew and in January 1982 curator Alain Sayag came to stay with him in Los Angeles to select photographs for an exhibition at the Pompidou.

After Sayag left for home, Hockney was left with a pile of Polaroid film which they’d been using to document the photographs going into the exhibition. At the time Hockney was struggling to resolve a painting he was making of his home, particularly how best to describe the interior and exterior space in one image. Having argued the case against photography with Sayag for days, Hockney picked up the Polaroid camera and photographed the house, laying out 30 Polaroids in a grid. Realising immediately the potential of his approach he made eight more works within the week and by early May had made 140 of these ‘joiners’.

Hockney’s new Polaroid works could take 4 or 5 hours to make and much of this time was spent waiting for the prints to develop. They also necessitated a great deal of floor space, so, in September, Hockney switched to using his Pentax 110 film camera. By using conventional film, he could take a sequence of images in quick succession, making it much easier to remember the previous shot. By May 1983, he’d produced a further 200 works in this way, of which 42 were made into editions. Once the first collage was completed, multiple prints were made from each negative and these 4 ¾ x 3 ¾ inch prints were laid down with reference to a master notebook. Their production, by ten assistants, was overseen by David Graves with Hockney dropping by regularly to approve and sign them.

The photo collages often allude to the act of photography, subjects include Gregory loading a camera, or celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz setting up her equipment, and many include Hockney’s feet, shadow or his reflection in a mirror. They present something of a travelogue, as Hockney seeks out the expansive landscapes of the American mid-West - Arizona, Utah, Nevada - and travels through California, New York, Minnesota, Yorkshire, London, Japan and Hawaii.

Hockney made the present work during a stay in New York in late November and early December 1982. Other photo collages made during the trip include: The Brooklyn Bridge; Sunday Morning, Mayflower Hotel; Raymond Foye Looking at Brooklyn; Raymond and Ann on the Subway; The Skater; Brancusi Sculpture; Celia Making Tea; Joe Macdonald in his Apartment; Max and John; John Dexter Rehearsing ‘Les Mamelles de Tiresias’; John Dexter, Lincoln Plaza; and The Metropolitan Opera House. The last four of these relate to the purpose of Hockney’s trip which was to see John Dexter’s new production of Parade open at the Met.

Graffiti Palace, 1982, shows the back view of Central Park's Naumburg Bandshell, which is situated at the edge of the Mall, just south of Bethesda Terrace. A music pavilion has existed at this location since 1862 and the present Neo-Classical, ‘City Beautiful’ structure was built in 1923. Envisaged as a venue for open air concerts and dances, it has also been a rallying point for political protest, serving as the backdrop for a speech by Martin Luther King Jr and vigils for John Lennon. By the early 1980s New York was experiencing rising crime rates and a crack epidemic and many homeless people were sleeping rough in this part of the park.

Hockney’s image shows a deserted Central Park after a shower of rain, his own feet the only sign of life. The graffiti on the pavilion adds a flash of colour to the otherwise sepia tones in the scene. Given his interest in text, this is a natural subject for Hockney, who would no doubt enjoy capturing all these artists’ signatures within his own work. Among the tags we find a few band names – The Who, The Jam, Stray Cats - and the ubiquitous ‘Make Love Not War’, but mostly the graffiti announces ‘I am here’. Graffiti Palace’s empty stage acts as a melancholy counterpoint to the warm colours of the rather more cosy, and exclusive, opera house where Hockney’s friend and associates are rehearsing.

The coherent replication of the steps here, gives the illusion that we might walk down them into the picture, but Hockney’s process distorts the space so that, at the same time, we are able to look left and right, along the railings of the terrace. This collage is made up of 85 individual prints, requiring that Hockney shoot at least 3 or 4 rolls of film. In the current era of digital photography it’s important to keep in mind the improvisatory nature of this process where each shot remained unseen until later on. The present edition is made in an edition of 15, while other photo collages were produced in editions of 10, 15 and 20. It is unique in being presented in a shaped-frame which echoes the curve of the bandshell. The negative space around the photo collages is a key ingredient to their formal elegance, most often they are presented on the distinctive blue card we see here – but other examples are mounted on ochre, green, brown, grey and black card.

In a lecture at the V & A in November 1983, Hockney reflected on this body of work - relating his photo collage to both Cubism and Chinese scroll paintings ‘which must be experienced in time like music or literature’. Hockney finds in his photo collages a direct parallel with drawing, they are about line he says, not colour. By rejecting Renaissance ideas of single-point perspective he achieves an animated, immersive image which more accurately reflects how we see and experience the world.

After returning from a trip to Japan in February 1983, Hockney only made a few more photo collages. He felt he’d exhausted the possibilities of the process, at least for the time being, although he returned to the technique intermittently to make larger works – a notable later example being Pearblossom Highway #1, 11-18 April, 1986 (47 x 64 inches). It’s clear that this period of intense experimentation with photography allowed Hockney to work through far more compositional ideas than would have been possible through painting alone and that this unique way of looking at and recording the world permanently changed his approach to and understanding of perspective. Sometimes individual photo collages have directly informed a sequence of paintings The Chair, 1985 for example became the starting point for the painting Van Gogh Chair, 1988. Hockney has also taken the notion of multiple frames back into his painting - A Bigger Grand Canyon, 1998, for example, was made up from 60 individual canvases. These ideas have reemerged more recently in video works such as the 9 screen film The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods (Spring 2011, Summer 2010, Autumn 2010, Winter 2010), 2010-2011 and his digitally made photographic collages shown in Painting and Photography at Annely Juda in 2015.