The Iconic Gay Painter and his Two Gay Subjects

[PeterRS]

I once wrote a piece about the gay novelist Christopher Isherwood whose best known work today must be his Berlin Stories which form the basis for the play I Am A Camera which in turn forms the basis for the musical Cabaret!

An Englishman, Isherwood had emigrated to California at the outset of war. Enjoying Valentine's Day on the beach in 1953 he struck up a conversation with a particularly handsome young man, Don Bachardy. Isherwood then was 48: Bachardy 18. This was an era when being gay was against the law in California. But the law had never meant much to Isherwood, one of the century's most famous gay icons.

Another gay icon and eventual California neighbour quickly became a friend, the English painter David Hockney. Hockney was a frequent visitor to the home of Isherwood and Bachardy. In 1968 he decided to paint them. That painting is now arguably his most famous painting after A Bigger Splash showing a man diving into a swimming pool. Although in the Splash painting we do not see a near naked man after the dive, unlike another Hockney painting more or less on the same subject. At the time, that man was Peter Schlesinger, Hockney's lover.

What makes the Isherwood/Bachardy painting so different is its basic middle-class homeliness. Although Christopher died almost 40 years ago, Bachardy at 91 remains alive and active as a painter himself. A vast canvas, for the past 40 years the painting of the two of them has been in private hands. Now it is being put up for sale by Christie's Auction House in New York next month. Expected sale price? Up to US$45 million!

That's a huge price for a modern painting. But A Bigger Splash rather set the stage, as it were. Sold for £2.9 million to a private buyer in 2006, it was then a record for a Hockney painting. The buyer then resold it in 2020 for £23.1 million!

Photo: Christie's Auction House

 

[tm_nyc]

Interesting!  Article in The Guardian on the painting:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/oct/08/david-hockney-don-bachardy-christopher-isherwood-california-queer-art

[Pete1111]

British actress Elsa Lancaster lived on Adelaide Dr., next door to Bachardy and Isherwood in Santa Monica. They were good friends

A Don Bachardy show was presented earlier this year at The Huntington, in San Marino.  Bachardy did an astonishing volume of portraits and is still going, although likely at a lesser pace.

The show included portraits of Hockney, Peter Schlessinger, James Baldwin, and many, many more.

A lot of history!