This is a presentation I made on two contemporary artists: Peter Saville and David Hockney

1. Peter
Saville

2. Biography
• Born on the 9th October 1955 in Manchester.
• He studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic from 1975 to 1978.
• After approaching Tony Wilson at a Patti Smith show in 1978 he entered the music scene. Wilson
commissioned the first Factory Records poster after this meeting, and Saville became a partner in
the record company, where he designed many record sleeves.
• In 2004 he became creative director of the City of Manchester
• In 2008 Saville collaborated with Transport for Greater Manchester for the rebranding of the
Metrolink tram system.
• In 2010 he designed the England football team home shirt.
• In 2012 collaborated with Dovecot Studios in celebration of their centenary to create a large scale
tapestry.

3. Influences
• He was notably influenced by the book Pioneers of Modern Typography by Herbert Spencer
• Included information that explained how modern typography had been developed out of the
ideas of the 20th century painting, poetry and architecture and not from the printing industry.
• Another influence for Saville was Jan Tschichold and his disciplined yet subtle approach to
typography.
• Also I think music must have had an influence on him as he designed so many album covers
therefore worked with musicians a lot.

4. Key ideas
• "I was looking at one body of work, Jan Tschichold, and I was looking at late Tschichold, where
there's this very strict neo-classicism, and I was supposed to be looking at the front of the book at
his constructivist work and I kept on peaking at the back. Then I was in London for the weekend
and I picked up a book that was Philip Johnson's proposals for the AT&T tower in New York, and
on top of a 650 foot skyscraper, he was proposing a broken pediment, a classical ornamental finial
to this skyscraper. I thought 'if Philip Johnson can put a broken pediment on the top of a
skyscraper, I can use a bit of serif type!' It was postmodernism in architecture and it was
happening everywhere.“
• "In between the 70s and the 90s, we did a cultural greatest hits moment, and were able to admit
that yes, we do like columns actually, or we quite like flares after all and we like long hair and we
like short hair. The most interesting thing to happen with pop culture in the period is that it has
become pluralist. When I was a teenager, there was dance music and there was rock music, there
were mods and there were rockers, and if you were one, forget any leanings towards the other.
The fabulous but overwhelming and confusing thing about popular culture now is that we have a
fusion culture and it all coexists."

5. Suede ‘coming up’
album cover
This is an album cover designed by Peter Saville
for a band called Suede. The image is very
vibrant, there is a use of blended bright colours
in contrast with more monotone greys. The
album is called coming up which could be a
term used for when taking drugs. I think this is
quite relevant because some of the imagery has
a kind of psychedelic style such as the figure
closest who is made up of flowing vibrant
colours. The figures seem to be on a floating
mattress which seems to be rising from the
darker bottom of the image to the brighter
yellow coloured top of the image. I think the
contrasting figures could be trying to represent
some kind of imaginative world for the more
realistically coloured figure like he is distanced
from the real world.

6. David
Hockney

7. Biography
• Born 9th July 1937 in Bradford.
• He studied at Bradford College of Art and then the Royal College of Art
• He moved to Los Angeles in 1964, then returned to London in 1968. form 1973 to 1975 he lived in
Paris and then moved back to Los Angeles in 1978.
• In the early 80s he began to produce photo collages which he called joiners. The photos were
taken from different perspectives at slightly different times therefore was associated with cubism.
• In 1985 Hockney started using the Quantel Paintbox, a computer programme which allowed him
to sketch directly onto the screen. He produced many landscapes using this software.
• Since 2009 he has painted hundreds of portraits, still life's and landscapes using the Brushes IPad
application.

8. Influences
• Hockney did a series of etchings which were inspired by Wallace Stevens, who was inspired by
Pablo Picasso.
• The cubist movement influenced him with his joiners.
• While Kitaj's work discreetly affected the British Pop Art movement, it profoundly affected
Hockney. Hockney's keen awareness of the times around him is directly attributed, in many critic's
opinions, to Kitaj.
• A second American artist that influenced Hockney was Robert Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg's
compositions also lead Hockney in becoming more aware of his surroundings and how such
surroundings could be propelled into lasting art.

9. Key ideas
• Hockney pulled ideas for art from everywhere. Some of his more significant sources, artists in
their own right, included Paul Klee, Jean Dubuffet, and Francis Bacon.
• Hockney drew ideas from fairy tales as well. Some of his more renowned work comes from his
etchings of tales by the Brothers Grimm.

10. Chair
This is a photomontage by David Hockney done in
1985. Hockney did a series of photomontages of
various things such as landscapes and portraits.
They are interesting pieces because of how the
perspective is skewed. The photos are all taken from
different angles with different perspective and
shadow. When put together they create an image
which is not true to life but is still recognisable and
each section in its own right is true to life. This has a
quite obvious link to cubist work and artists such as
Picasso who was a major influence on Hockney. This
can also be seen through some of Hockeys vibrantly
coloured landscape- similar colour types are used in
Picassos portraits which like this piece are painted
from various different viewpoints with different
lighting and perspective.