Unpublished Andy Warhol polaroids of David Hockney released for artist’s 80th birthday

A collection of previously unpublished polaroids taken by Andy Warhol of David Hockney have been released by image sourcing site Artimage. Celebrating Hockney’s upcoming 80th birthday on 9 July, the release includes both candid shots of the artist and staged portraits, giving insight to the friends’ relationship.

The photographs were taken between 1972–1974. Later, in 1981, Hockney was profiled in Interview Magazine – which was founded by Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock. According to The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc, Warhol commented in his diary at the time: “David Hockney came to lunch and Vincent [Fremont] did a video of him. And afterwards he went into the other room and did the interview. David’s cute, he really is magic.”

Warhol was known for carrying a polaroid camera with him during most of his artistic career, from the 50s until his death in 1987. Over that time he amassed an extensive collection of photos of the characters he met, chronicled in the 2015 Taschen book Andy Warhol. Polaroids, and featuring the likes of Dolly Parton, Debbie Harry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bianca Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent and Grace Jones.