As galleries across Britain celebrate a new David Hockney retrospective, culture commentators are reflecting on the radicalism of his early work. Painted when homosexual acts were still illegal in England, his bright Californian pools and languid nude figures depicted what one biographer called a “peaceful, gay paradise.” This was not merely art. It was a quiet act of defiance.
For working people, the Hockney story is a reminder that cultural progress is not a given. It is fought for. The same 1960s that allowed Hockney to openly explore queer joy also saw the first stirrings of the modern trade union movement for LGBT rights. Fifty years on, the cost of that struggle is clear in the wages of tolerance: today, a same-sex couple can marry in a registry office without fear of arrest. But the price of bread, and the dignity of a full day’s labour, remain contested.
In his early days, Hockney painted from a place of relative privilege. He had escaped the grimy mill towns of the North for the warmth of California. But his subjects – often working class men, lounging by pools or showering after a swim – were drawn from the same communities that unionised and struck. The real economy of the 1960s gave Hockney a backdrop of rising wages, council housing, and free tuition. That material base allowed him, and many others, to focus on liberation beyond mere survival.
Today, the battle for equality is more cultural than criminal. But the economic foundations have crumbled. Young LGBTQ+ people in the North face a housing crisis and zero-hour contracts. The “gay paradise” Hockney painted was one where a swimming pool cleaner could afford a modest home. Now, that same cleaner in Manchester or Bradford likely rents a damp bedsit. The progress of law has not been matched by the progress of wages.
Still, the exhibition is a testament to endurance. Hockney’s work, once hidden from view, now hangs in the nation’s galleries. That is a victory. But it is a partial one. Until every worker, regardless of who they love, can afford a life of security and peace, the paradise remains incomplete.
