In Amsterdam for the opening of an exhibition of his work, the artist indulges in his greatest passion outside painting
THE CONSERVATORIUM HOTEL in Amsterdam enforces a strict no-smoking policy. Unless, that is, you are David Hockney. When I meet him in his room one drizzly afternoon in February, he is sitting on the sofa, dressed in a lime-green cardigan, a red-and-white polka-dot neckerchief and a pair of primrose spectacles. On the table in front of him are the half-eaten remains of a smoked-salmon bagel and four packs of Davidoff cigarettes.
Today he dismisses all concern about his body. “I would point out that among my colleagues, Picasso smoked, lived to be 91; Monet smoked, lived to be 86; Renoir smoked, lived to be 78; Van Gogh smoked a pipe, and he died early, but not from smoking; Cézanne smoked. Lots of painters smoked and I don’t know one who died young. Monet smoked all day!”
Since then he has zigzagged wildly, investigating an extraordinary variety of styles. As Martin Gayford, a British art critic who has collaborated with Hockney on several books and been painted by him, puts it, “he always had the self-confidence to ignore what critics and curators were telling him he ought to be doing.”
Eventually Hockney’s assistant arrives to take us to the installation at the museum. Hockney reaches behind the sofa to pick up his walking stick and dons a tweed flat cap, which, together with his neckerchief and loose collar, makes him look like a fashion-conscious farmer. He also brings with him a portable ashtray—a little pouch with red-and-white stripes and a blue flap, made in Japan from some kind of heat-resistant plastic.
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