{"id":365814,"date":"2026-06-18T15:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365814\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:12:10","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-a-fond-memory-of-david-hockney-whose-love-of-l-a-was-mutual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365814\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: A fond memory of David Hockney, whose love of L.A. was mutual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>To the editor: I was fortunate to attend David Hockney\u2019s 80th birthday celebration at the Getty Center in 2017 (<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/obituaries\/story\/2026-06-12\/david-hockney-dies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cDavid Hockney, whose art celebrated sun-drenched Los Angeles, dead at 88,\u201d<\/a> June 12). Prior to an interview in the large auditorium, Hockney quietly entered the room with a selection of his works, including his iconic \u201cPearblossom Highway\u201d photo collage. He sat across from it and I felt so lucky to be there as he visited it, like two old friends, familiar and content to be together.<\/p>\n<p>After the auditorium event \u2014 and a rousing chorus of \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d \u2014 Hockney returned to the exhibition rooms, where he pulled out his smartphone and enthusiastically showed us photos documenting his continuing interest in reverse perspective.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, Hockney, a notorious chain smoker, was allowed to smoke onstage \u2014 the Getty supplied a large ashtray and a security person just offstage holding a large fire extinguisher!<\/p>\n<p>Those cigarettes were no match for Hockney\u2019s joy for living, looking and creating. He loved L.A. and we loved him back.<\/p>\n<p>Sheila Berman, Los Angeles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: I was fortunate to attend David Hockney\u2019s 80th birthday celebration at the Getty Center in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[145676,2072,148485,63278,27536,45798,2303,48,52,51,148488,1838,47,50,49,63,4284,22169,148486,148487,6201],"class_list":["post-365814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-david-hockney","tag-editor","tag-fond-memory","tag-getty-center","tag-interest","tag-joy","tag-l-a","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-large-auditorium","tag-letter","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-love","tag-match","tag-photo-collage","tag-reverse-perspective","tag-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}