Love In the Time of Intolerance

Two Boys Aged 23 or 24

C. P. Cavafy was a Greek poet who was born in Alexandria in 1863. He was one of the earliest modern authors to address homosexuality in his writing and was discovered by Hockney when the latter was a student at the Royal College of Art in the early 1960s.  
In 1966 Hockney began work on a series of etchings based on a selection of Cavafy's work – each print corresponding to a poem. The illustrations were etched directly onto copper plates (you can see this in the video below) using a simple, spare style which matched the unadorned yet powerful language of the poetry.
Though a number of the prints display direct reference to the middle eastern world of Cavafy’s poems (To remain, set outside a dry cleaning shop and The shop window of a tobacco store both have Arabic shop signs), other illustrations are based on drawings of Hockney’s friends in his bedroom in Notting Hill. 

The prints are not literal translations of a narrative, but rather Hockney’s interpretation of the sentiments explored in the poems: the passion of chance encounters, the familiarity between lovers. 

Portrait of Cavafy in Alexandria

The suite was published in 1967, the same year in which legislation to decriminalise homosexuality in England and Wales was passed. Therefore, this set of prints represents an important public statement: one which is told through the most intimate and personal aspects of love.

To view the prints alongside the poems which inspired them, click here and flick through our online catalogue.  

The Arts Council made a film about the creation of the engravings entitled Love’s Presentation. Watch an extract in the video below or view it here: