David Hockney’s Breakfast with Stanley in Malibu is an intimate work centred on Stanley, one of the artist’s beloved dachshunds and a recurring subject within his work. Created in 1989 and produced in 1992, the composition was constructed from a 24-part Xerox copy of a facsimile drawing, with the individual sheets assembled to form a much larger image measuring approximately 127 × 136 cm. The work reflects Hockney’s longstanding interest in challenging the boundaries of a single image, using multiple sheets to build a fragmented yet unified composition.
The work also sits within Hockney’s wider experimentation with photocopiers, fax machines and other reproduction technologies during the 1980s and early 1990s. Rather than viewing these technologies simply as methods of copying an original, Hockney explored their potential as artistic tools in their own right. In Breakfast with Stanley in Malibu, the everyday subject of his dog is combined with this experimental approach to image-making, connecting the work to both Hockney’s celebrated depictions of Stanley and Boodgie and his broader investigation into reproduction, perspective and new technologies.
Breakfast with Stanley in Malibu, 1989