David Hockney is revered for his curiosity as an artist. While he experimented with traditional media such as printmaking and painting, he also ventured into modern forms like photography. He was particularly intrigued by the contrast between the fixed, static perspective of a photograph and the more fluid, multifaceted way we experience the world in daily life. Using a Polaroid camera, Hockney captured multiple viewpoints of a single subject and assembled them into collages. These “joiners,” as he called them, disrupted the conventional, singular perspective offered by the camera, favoring instead a more dynamic and holistic representation of the subject.

In this particular work, the subject is his longtime friend Gregory, shown reading. The collage compels the viewer not to focus solely on Gregory, but to become immersed in the surrounding environment. Although Hockney was initially skeptical of photography as an artistic medium, he began to incorporate traditional printmaking techniques, such as layering, to connect these fractured perspectives.

Through his photocollages, Hockney revitalized the principles of Cubism by using modern technology to reconstruct everyday scenes from fragmented visuals into dynamic compositions. Each Polaroid is taken individually, with specific intent, contributing to the uniqueness and richness of the final creation.