Public Life
A conscientious objector, Hockney worked as a medical orderly in hospitals as his National Service 1957–59.
Hockney was a founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1979. He serves on the advisory board of the political magazine Standpoint, and contributed original sketches for its launch edition, in June 2008.
He is a staunch pro-tobacco campaigner and was invited to guest-edit the Today programme on 29 December 2009 to air his views on the subject.
In October 2010, he and a hundred other leading artists signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt protesting against cutbacks in the arts.
Read more about this topic: David Hockney
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or life:
“Modern dancers are inconvenienced by a local ordinance requiring the passage of visible light between partners.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)