End Bossiness Soon T-Shirt

During 2020, while living and working in Normandy, David Hockney began making a series of iPad drawings that combined image with handwritten text. The phrase End Bossiness Soon first appears in this period. Here, 'bossiness' becomes a catch all term for over control, moral instruction, and bureaucratic management. The inclusion of soon is significant, and Hockney’s own, phrase asks for change without being bossy. The phrase also features in one of the new paintings for Serpentine Thomas Mupfupi Resting on a Pink and White Checkered Tablecloth, it includes Mupfupi (Hockney’s carer) wearing the badge on his uniform. It is neither instruction nor manifesto, but a small act of resistance grounded in courtesy, clarity, and belief in human judgement.

David Hockney

David Hockney (b. 1937 in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK) is one of the most influential artists of our time. Throughout his seven-decade spanning career, the British artist remains endlessly inventive and committed to celebrating the world around him, epitomised by his signature phrase, “Love Life.” A deep fascination with perspective and a desire to investigate how we see and represent the world led him to explore a range of artistic mediums from painting to photographic collages, set design, drawing and printmaking. Hockney’s use of new technology is an extension of his interest in different modes of capturing reality. From his Polaroid composites to fax machine drawings and, in recent years, his iPad paintings, he seeks to unlock the potential of each technology for the creation of art.