On Nov. 23, the Palm Springs Art Museum will open an exhibition of works by David Hockney, one of the world’s pre-eminent gay artists.
David Hockney: Perspective Should Be Reversed: Prints From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation is billed as the largest retrospective print exhibition of Hockney’s six-decade career, and features almost 200 pieces, spanning the breadth of the artists’ mediums, from early etchings in the 1950s and ’60s to colorful prints and collages and recent experimental drawings on iPad.
Now 87, Hockney is a salient choice to spotlight the Palm Springs Art Museum’s commitment to a comprehensive program focusing on the contributions of LGBTQ+ artists.
“It was so obvious to me, given the demographics of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, that the museum should have a concentrated effort on exhibiting and promoting the works of LGBTQ+ artists,” said Adam Lerner, the museum’s executive director, to the Independent.
Lerner—who does not identify as LGBTQ+—was director at Museum of Contemporary Art Denver before taking the helm at the PSAM in 2021. He said the museum has hired David Evans Frantz as the Q+ Art curator at large to oversee the programming, which will include ongoing exhibitions, public events, awards and collection-building.
“We need to be the ones to take the lead nationally,” Lerner said. “No other general art museum in the country that I know of has a program like this. If we can’t do it in Palm Springs, then where else? We feel it’s important to send a message to the general public, especially today, where there is so much prejudice in the world. We think that museums can be important forces in our culture, where we can affirm a plurality of voices.”
Lerner said the museum wants to send a message to the community that it’s committed to the Q+ Art program.
“We thought there was no better place to start than the most famous living gay artist in the world, so it was very intentional that we wanted the name that would be most familiar to our various audiences, especially those audiences in Southern California, because he had so much influence here,” Lerner said.
The Independent reached out to local arts luminaries Jim Isermann, Jonathan Carver Moore and Michael Childers to get their perspectives on both the Q+ Art initiative and Hockney’s influence and impact.
Jim Isermann is an American artist and an early devotee of David Hockney. Three of his works are on display in the inaugural Q+ Art exhibit, To Move Toward the Limits of Living: LGBTQ+ Works From the Collection, which runs through Jan. 13. He has exhibited in solo and group shows too numerous to mention, including most recently at the Pacific Design Center Gallery in Los Angeles.
Isermann recently retired as a professor of art at the University of California, Riverside. For the past 20 years, he has lived in Palm Springs in a Wexler home he and his partner refurbished.
He left his hometown of Kenosha, Wis., in the late ’70s and headed west to earn a master’s degree at the California Institute of the Arts—a move he credits largely to Hockney.
“I first became aware of his work probably 50 years ago, when I was an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee,” Isermann said. “I was probably 19 years old, and somebody showed me his work in class—and honestly, it literally changed my life. I was so incredibly attracted to the way he captured the artificiality of design in California in the ’60s and ’70s, the palm trees and the landscaping. He captured something about California that was so entrancing and appealing to me.
“And then, of course, the other thing was just how queer the work was—and, you know, kind of unashamedly homoerotic. There was both a kind of freedom and celebration, and thoughtfulness and tenderness and bravery that was all associated with that early work. It was something I’d never seen before.”
Isermann remembers writing to galleries, pre-internet, to collect color brochures of Hockney exhibits. When Hockney lectured at Los Angeles’ Otis College of Art and Design in the late ’70s, Isermann was there, but came away disappointed in the subject matter: Picasso and his latter works.
“It was probably the fall of ’78 or ’79, and there were all these students crammed in this room to hear him talk,” Isermann said. “It was so crazy, because I couldn’t have cared less about Picasso at that point. It seemed very old fashioned and uninteresting, but what he was obsessed about was the fact that this was an artist who was in his 80s. This was an artist who never stopped making work, and was looking at the world through 80-year-old eyes. So he had that vision (then), about what it would be to continue making work, as a long-lived artist. He’s such a model that he’s never stopped working, never stopped challenging how to make work, and has been fearless about taking on new technologies.”
The ideas of having visible role models and a language to talk about identity are things Isermann sees as both positive and complicated. He hopes the Q+ Art initiative can provide the kind of connective tissue useful in examining the span of an artist’s career.
“I mean, (Hockney) has got a 60- or 70-year-long career making work,” Isermann said. “Early in his career, I think it was much easier to see (queer themes), because there were so many drawings of lovers and boyfriends and couples who he knew. And even though he was incredibly interested in portraiture, a lot of the people in these beautiful portraits were kind of gay icons themselves. There’s a very famous double portrait of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy. There’s a really beautiful portrait of Henry Geldzahler, a curator in New York City who was influential in his career.
“There was even this famous incident, if you’ve read any of the biographies, where he famously was stopped going through Customs (with) this material. He worked from photographs a lot, and so he had gay porn and physique pictorials that he would use to help render some of his images. This would have been probably in the ’60s or early ’70s. It seems unbelievable today; that work is so tame compared to what you can just find anywhere now, so I think those connections are really interesting. I think it’s a very complicated thing.
“I recently retired from teaching, and I work with a lot of gay and queer grad students. Obviously, I’m old enough to have lived through at least three definitions of the word ‘queer.’ So yes, the current definition is much more celebratory and kind of all-encompassing, and a lot of people can claim a queer identity, and it has less to do with, necessarily, sexual orientation. I guess I would say, as somebody who grew up where everyone was so secretive about their orientation and … you didn’t have open role models, there’s something about (Q+ Art) that is really important for young artists and students, to see themselves reflected in groups of work in an exhibition. At the same time, it can be limiting, because (with) a lot of this work, the primary intention or read of the work isn’t necessarily queer, but there’s something inherent in each individual that informs the work they make. And so, regardless, there are ways of connecting (to) this work.
“(Queer art) has been made ever since art was being made, so it’s nice to see the through line made visible, and have it there for anybody who’s willing to do the work to see how these things connect to each other.”
Gallery owner Jonathan Carver Moore is a member of the Q+ Art advisory board. When he heard about Lerner’s vision to make PSAM the nation’s premiere cultural repository for queer art and artists, Moore knew he wanted to be involved.
That was in 2022, a busy year for Moore. He launched his eponymous gallery in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco and bought a home in Palm Springs. He said he sees Q+ Art as a catalyst for Palm Springs to become a bona fide arts hub.
“Q+ Art really wants to focus on being this premier national platform that can recognize the achievements of artists and creatives who identify as LGBTQ+,” Moore said. “It just seemed like Palm Springs would be the perfect place, right? Considering the makeup, we often refer to it as being a destination for the LGBTQ+ community. I also think it’s great because of its proximity to Los Angeles.”
Moore said it makes sense for Palm Springs to become an LGBTQ+ arts hub.
“Art is not just about beauty, because sometimes art is not always beautiful; it’s really about changing or hoping to change someone’s mind,” he said. “(With) an entire collection of art centered around a marginalized community, (Palm Springs) can be that place people go to, not only for vacation or bachelor and bachelorette parties; it’s also a place where you can go to look at something in a different way, because of this huge collection soon to be existing, right? It’s starting to come about, so can we imagine what it’s going to look like in years to come.”
At Intersect Palm Springs earlier this year, Moore showcased a collection of works by queer African artists. The Smithsonian National Museum of African Art recently acquired 10 of those pieces for its permanent collection and will feature them at WorldPride 2025 in Washington, D.C. It’s the first show of its kind, said Moore, who takes great pride in representing artists who might have a hard time getting recognition elsewhere.
Accessibility is important to Moore, and when he was presented with the opportunity to open his gallery in the Tenderloin, the nation’s first nationally recognized transgender district, he jumped at the chance.
“As a gallerist operating through a Black queer lens, I recognize not only the importance and necessity to have underrepresented artists exhibit their works, but also the need to have people who look like them, with shared experiences, as gallery owners, directors, members of the sales team and more,” he said. “I really care a lot about community, and because of that, it’s come back to me in many great ways. I want you to be able to walk in and feel welcomed in that art space. I want you to be able to see art on the walls that looks like you. I want you to be able to ask questions and not be fearful of sounding like you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you don’t belong in an art space. … People learn when you’re open to them, just like when we’re talking about various artists I put on display in Palm Springs. (You grow) when you can see or read a story and understand a queer artist’s background, even though you may not necessarily see the direct correlation of queerness in the painting. When you read about what Hockney was envisioning, your mind changes, and you learn, and you evolve.”
For Moore, the Hockney exhibit brings a cachet to the PSAM that only an artist of world renown could bring. He sees Q+ Art as a draw for new fans of art and culture to join Palm Springs’ more seasoned arts community in experiencing the scope of Hockney’s career.
“I understand why Hockney would be chosen because (of) his work in symbolizing the queer experience,” Moore said. “I feel like you can’t be talking about queer artists without talking about David Hockney. And I think it might be a great way, when you’re talking about the audience that we have in Palm Springs, to have a historical reference point. He is an older artist, so I also think that it’s important to build upon the history of LGBTQ+ creatives, and not just think about our immediate contemporaries. (With) Hockney, we’re looking back at an artist in history and time. I think the PSAM, from what I’ve gathered from meetings and conversations, they’re going to take us on this journey of queer history and bring us up to the current day and talk about LGBTQ artists, and also about how younger artists are influenced by artists who came before them.
“I also think that Palm Springs—it’s evolving. I’m assuming it has a lot to do with this shift from the pandemic. Younger people have purchased homes here, me and my husband being (two) of them, and you can just see the difference. It’s a mixed community, and that’s great. But I also think if you’re going to start a museum collection like the Palm Springs Art Museum has, it’s great to do it with an artist like Hockney, and then to bring up current artists.”
Michael Childers is a contemporary and longtime friend of Hockney’s. In a storied career that saw him photograph Hollywood legends and icons of the art world from Jack Nicholson to Catherine Deneuve and Andy Warhol, Hockney is among Childers’ most famous subjects.
In 1978, Childers convinced Hockney to get into a pool fully clothed. From there, he snapped what would become one of the most enduring images of the then-rising arts icon. The image of the artist in black and white, gazing off in profile as he floats barefoot in a double-breasted bespoke on a white raft in an inky Hollywood pool, captures Hockney’s sense of style and his connection to California swimming pools.
“David liked the idea. I explained to him that it was in homage to (Jacques Henri) Lartigue, a famous French photographer about the turn of the century, who did a similar photograph of his cousin Zissou, who was an artist,” Childers said. “(Lartigue) put him in the pool in a suit. Several galleries in L.A. have said that it’s the most iconic photograph ever taken of David Hockney, the one floating in the pool.”
Hockney moved to Los Angeles in 1964. His painting “A Bigger Splash” (1967) is often credited with sparking a fascination among artists and photographers about what would become known as California pool culture. Hockney would return again and again to the theme, creating a series of paintings in vibrant acrylics.
“Hockney is now the most triumphant, celebrated, living gay artist in the world,” Childers said. “He is huge in France, big in England and in Germany. He had a house in Malibu at a time, and there is some connection with Palm Springs. His former business partner and lover lives here. David loved Palm Springs. He invented a swimming-pool culture of naked boys coming out of pools in the era of the early ’60s, which influenced a whole generation, and many, many photographers and painters have copied.”
Hockney also created paintings on actual swimming pools, covering the bottoms in curved slashes that mimic wave patterns. A Childers’ photograph taken at Hockney’s Montcalm Avenue home in Los Angeles shows the durability of Hockney’s fascination.
“(In 2012), I had the good fortune to do an exhibition for the Getty (Foundation, at the Palm Springs Art Museum),” Childers said. “It was called Backyard Oasis. They chose my photograph ‘The Hockney Swimmer’ (1978), a very famous photograph, as the cover for the catalog. … (The photo) is Hockney’s friend Ian Falconer, swimming in the pool that David Hockney had painted at the bottom.”
In 2000, when Childers published his photograph book Hollywood Voyeur, Hockney wrote the introduction.
Childers’ work is part of the permanent collection at the museum and can be viewed in a group show on the third floor. He remembers attending the Q+ Art kickoff in March and found the queer-themed show a refreshing change of pace. Childers said that with Q+ Art, the PSAM will more closely reflect the community it serves.
“I think it’s a great start,” he said. “Really, I think it’s about time—just really about time. Get rid of that clutter of Gene Autry, saddles and William Holden and Western furniture from 50, 60 years ago. It’s a step forward with the times. The times have changed, so step forward to represent the community (and) the population. … I’m a big fan of Adam Lerner’s vision of the future and his ideas. I think it’s very sophisticated, and I’m so anxious to see what they’ll follow this up with.
“This beautiful show, coming into Palm Springs—it’s (Jordan) Schnitzer’s collection, and he’s worked for years on it. He’s based in Portland, but he lives here part time.”
David Hockney: Perspective Should Be Reversed: Prints From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation opens Saturday, Nov. 23, with a day of special events beginning at 11 a.m. The exhibit runs through May 2025. The museum is located at 101 N. Museum Drive. Selected events are free. For ticketed events and more information, visit www.psmuseum.org.
This story was updated on Nov. 12 to include the name of the Q+Art curator at large.