AN IMAGE OF KEN, 1985: PRINT BY DAVID HOCKNEY FROM THE MOVING FOCUS SERIES

An Image of Ken, from David Hockney’s Moving Focus series, 1985, presents a highly expressive portrait of Hockney's father rendered through distorted perspective and exaggerated facial features. Ken's oversized glasses dominate the composition, magnifying one eye and immediately drawing attention to Hockney’s fascination with perception and the mechanics of looking. Rather than pursuing a traditional likeness, Hockney fractures and reshapes the figure through fluid lines and warped proportions, creating a portrait that feels psychologically charged and visually unstable. The loose lithographic mark-making gives the image an immediacy and intimacy, while the monochromatic palette allows the focus to remain on form, expression and spatial distortion.

Created during a period when Hockney was deeply engaged with Cubism, photography and alternative systems of perspective, An Image of Ken reflects the central concerns of the Moving Focus series. Across the portfolio, Hockney challenged the idea of a fixed viewpoint, instead constructing images that mimic the shifting nature of human vision and memory. Here, the enlarged spectacles become both a visual device and a conceptual metaphor, reinforcing themes of observation, mediation and interpretation. Published by Tyler Graphics in a small edition of just 20, the work stands as an example of Hockney’s experimental printmaking practice during the mid-1980s.