Who are the two figures in the painting?

The standing figure is Mo McDermott; the swimmer is John St Clair. Hockney originally conceived the composition with his ex-lover Peter Schlesinger as the standing figure, but their relationship ended during the painting's creation.

Why did Hockney destroy the first version?

He struggled for six months with the pool perspective and the spatial relationship between figures. Unable to resolve the background (trying walls, glass, mountains), he destroyed it and started fresh just two months before his deadline.

Portrait of an Artist | $90M Auction Record

David Hockney completed this Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) in May 1972, combining his signature themes of swimming pools and double portraiture. A clothed man stands at a pool's edge in southern France, gazing down at a swimmer gliding underwater. The monumental canvas measures seven by ten feet, rendered in acrylics with Hockney's characteristic clarity.

The painting emerged from personal heartbreak. Hockney began the first version in October 1971 as his five-year relationship with Peter Schlesinger was ending. After six months of struggle, he destroyed that canvas, unable to resolve the spatial relationship between the figures. Just two months before his exhibition deadline, he started fresh, completing the final version in an intensive two-week sprint of 18-hour workdays.

Hockney flew to France to photograph the underwater perspective at filmmaker Tony Richardson's villa near Saint-Tropez. The emotional depth beneath the serene surface, the sense of separation and longing, lifts the painting beyond his earlier pool works. In November 2018, it sold at Christie's for $90.3 million, then a record for any living artist.