Swimming pool. Callipygian young man climbing out of it. David Hockney’s California dream. The painting:
(#1) Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool
About the painting. From Wikipedia:
Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool is a 1966 acrylic-on-canvas painting by the British pop art artist David Hockney. It depicts the rear view of a naked man climbing out of a swimming pool outside a contemporary house.
Peter Schlesinger, for some period, DH’s boyfriend and muse
The subject of this painting, of A Bigger Splash (1967), and of Portrait of An Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972)
And then the pop-music allusion in my title, which has the rear view without the gay-callipygian focus: from Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” from their 1976 album Boston (which you can view on YouTube here). Original lyrics:
It’s more than a feeling
When I hear that old song
They used to play
And I begin dreaming
Till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin’ away
Then a reminder about DH, from Wikipedia:
David Hockney (9 July 1937 – 11 June 2026) was an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
At the other end of the Peter story, in A Bigger Splash:
(#2) Vanishing Peter
From Wikipedia:
A Bigger Splash is a large pop art painting by British artist David Hockney. Measuring 242.5 centimetres (95.5 in) by 243.9 centimetres (96.0 in), it depicts a swimming pool beside a modern house, disturbed by a large splash of water created by an unseen figure who has apparently just jumped in from a diving board. It was painted in California between April and June 1967, when Hockney was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. Jack Hazan’s fictionalised 1973 biopic, A Bigger Splash, concentrating on the break-up of Hockney’s relationship with Peter Schlesinger, was named after the painting.
One more Hockney swimming pool painting, with a callipygian but bathing-suited young man:
(#3) Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
From Wikipedia:
Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is a large acrylic-on-canvas pop art painting by British artist David Hockney, completed in May 1972. It measures 7 ft × 10 ft (2.1 m × 3.0 m), and depicts two figures: one swimming underwater and one clothed male figure looking down at the swimmer.
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