Original subtitles

- The first book actually covers five years,

because I didn't really have a camera then,

I didn't take many pictures,

I just used an Instomatic camera.

And then the next five years is about 15 books.

That was me, yeah, before I had blonde hair.

Just in Long Beach in New York.

- [Interviewer] Why did you change your hair color?

- I was slightly drunk and I thought it might be nice.

The thing is that the way they developed,

the way the book developed, was originally,

you see, in 1967 I was cleaning up here

and I found, again, all the photographs

from the previous five, six years.

And I didn't quite know what to do with them

and I decided to buy a photograph album, stick them in.

And then, just at the same time, I bought a camera.

So that's how they began really,

and that's how they developed.

I decided to actually buy a camera and take pictures myself,

whereas before I'd often ask people to take pictures for me

if I wanted a picture of something, a reference, you see.

I'd ask a friend to do it,

and I thought maybe I could take pictures

just as good as anybody else.

I think I can actually.

So this first book is just as, as I say,

it's just five years.

It's all squashed in.

There's not too many pictures,

and most of them I didn't take, actually,

as you can see, because I appeared in them.

That's Dennis Hopper took that picture actually.

That's Henry Geldzahler, and Andy, and myself, and a friend

in New York, in Harlem.

We went to see a television film Dennis was making.

These are the first pictures in that,

when I went to live in California.

But none of them yet I actually used for paintings.

It's later on, I did take photographs all the time

for paintings, to use just for information really.

I'll turn over quicker till we find some.

Again, they were never used.

I mean, really they're just like holiday snaps,

you see so far.

Most of them in this book are, I think.

Ah yes, this was used for a painting.

It's the portrait of Nick Wilder

and I had these photographs taken, tht's Nick.

And there's some, actually, of him taken, stood in his pool.

This is his swimming pool.

It was also, it was used in the painting called

the Portrait of Nick Wilder,

and it was also used in a painting I did

of Peter climbing out of the swimming pool.

These are pictures ...

for ...

I call it Beverly Hills Housewife here.

You can see that the painting and the sculpture there

if you can remember the picture.

And just odd details for it again.

That chair appeared in the painting.

This is Polaroid photographs I took of Peter

for that painting of him clearing out.

And he didn't actually pose in a swimming pool;

he posed on his little car in the backyard in California.

Here's Nick as he appears in the painting, you see.

Looking like a busy, just looking

like a marble head coming out of the water.

And this is the swimming pool, just a picture of the pool.

That's my parents, my brother and his children.

They live in Bradford.

Here we're beginning now with photographs

for the painting of Fred and Marsha Weisman.

It's called American Collectors.

I took these pictures in a garden.

This is a little pool house that is in the painting

and a Henry Moore sculpture and a Bill Turnbull sculpture.

And that's how their faces appear.

In the garden also they had this totem poll.

And I thought, if you look there, there's a kind of ...

There's just a little smile. (chuckles)

And that's their garden again

with a pice of sculpture in it, and again

just a detail that was used in the painting there.

And these other pictures are just friends in Los Angeles.

Again, these are just taken in the street.

I think that's a nice picture.

In California.

Unfortunately in black and white, as you can see.

Oh, now here these are the start--

These were, this, as you can see is the room

that I painted Christopher Issherwood in

and I got them to sit.

I made drawings, of course, that are drawing as well.

This looks pretty much like the head in the painting.

It was facing this way.

Actually the painting is more done from life

than from those pictures, actually.

This is the still life that I set up.

I set up and photographed it, you see, here in the painting.

It goes to show you, often some people

read a lot more into things than is intended.

I mean, I set the still life up to arrange it

so that light was falling on it and everything.

Don, because Don is sat in this chair

and there are four books piled there and only three there,

they said I was hinting that

perhaps Don wasn't as well read as Christopher,

so he had to read some more books.

But anyway, I mean, it was just balance,

just a question in a way of kind of balance.

That's a rather pretty boy in Hollywood.

- [Interviewer] What made you go to California?

- Well I'd lived in California before.

I always liked it then.

I still liked it very much then, actually.

It was sunny and sexy and everything.

This is Richard Smith and the view ...

You can just see the view.

I did a painting, a big painting,

a view from his window at Corona del Mar.

This is Corona del Mar, and you can just

kind of recognize it if you see the painting.

And this house is here, you see, looking out across there.

That's nice.

There are quite a number of these swimming pools,

and I did paint water from these a lot, looking at them.

You see, it's rather beautiful.

I think the combination of blue and pink

is a terrific color, really.

It's a nice combination.

And I also made a painting exactly from that photograph,

almost ...

I didn't alter anything in it.

I just tried to copy it, 'cause I took that photograph

early in the morning, and I was rather pleased with it.

I thought it was beautiful.

And then, there's ...

Well, then you just get lots and lots of pages.

This is Ossie.

And that's Celia.

This is Celia, who is in the painting.

These are photographs of Ossie and Celia's wedding,

which I took, mostly.

And that's just Ossie's sister.

She took the other pictures.

And she's wearing this dress

that I did a picture of her in ...

in an etching.

'Cause she's quite pregnant,

and it looks very beautiful in that picture.

These are just taken outside that registry office

you see there.

It does look pretty.

Then we came back in, had a bottle of champagne,

and took these pictures.

It was nice.

'Cause she was just going to have a baby, you see,

so Ossie married here.

(chattering)

(laughing)

Oh yeah, this is, oh, that's when Celia

was in hospital going about to have the baby,

but there's some pictures up here that start with ...

I'd decided I'd been in the summer in ...

Earlier in the summer I'd been in Vichy,

and I decided to do a painting of the park there,

so we went back to Vichy.

I took Ossie, and Peter came with us.

And this is just Paris.

This is Vichy, just photographs of another section of it.

But there's ...

These are rather nice.

This is Peter reading Proust in the hotel.

A rather pretty hotel.

I thought that was a lovely picture.

And that one.

And that one.

And then--

- [Interviewer] One moment.

- And then, I took these pictures of the park,

and I did some little drawings,

and finally, that's really what the painting looks like.

I used that format, the very exact proportions

of that photograph.

I posed the picture, you see, with the three chairs,

one for me, and I got up to look at the scene

and paint the picture.

You see, that was the idea.

And the painting looks very similar to that,

even the change, the odd change of color

from the trees, the sun.

I think it's a very beautiful place, that little park there

with this triangle of trees,

making it look much longer than it really is.

These are just other little picture taken there.

We did drink the waters and everything.

It was nice.

We got cured.

And I think that's a nice picture of Ossie and Peter there,

in that one there.

I think is lovely, these trees.

I keep thinking of painting those again,

but I've not got round to it.

There's a lovely picture of them at--

Yeah, I think that's a nice photograph.

I thought of painting that.

He looks as though he's just trying to make

some contact with him, really, isn't it, a little.

She designs all the fabrics for Ossie's clothes, really.

She ...

I think she's terribly talented.

And for a girl, I think she's terribly witty

as well, very witty.

The only reason, actually, I started the painting was that

I'd drawn them a number of times, really.

I'd done a lot of drawings of ...

both Ossie and Celia.

I just thought they would make

a rather pretty picture, you see.

(chattering)

Well she just makes very pretty ...

shirt.

I'll get the shirt and I'll show you.

This is Celia's shirt.

She made for me.

Maybe I should wear it while I'm painting.

(phone ringing)

(chattering)

- Kind of faint, isn't it?

- [David] Yeah.

Colors--

- [Celia] That changed color just here,

but do you get that right?

- [David] Let me look.

- [Celia] That purpley color

looks very nice in here, doesn't it?

- Yeah, I see.

Well that top picture actually was taken here in London.

And the painting is still unfinished.

And I brought the painting back from Berkeley.

I'd started it in Berkeley, California,

and I was going to finish it here.

You can see the face isn't in and the hand.

And these were taken by a friend of mine, still actually.

I got Peter to pose again.

You can see this is being used for that,

and the hand and things, those details.

I think on the next page there are details.

Oh, no, there aren't.

This boy actually took the photographs for me.

Although I had actually bought a camera then, so I'd ...

I think on the next page, you see I was taking.

These were taken for the portrait

I was doing of Patrick Procktor,

which I was also painting at the same time.

That's just a profile.

I think I used that in the picture.

These are just paintings, I mean photographs

of Peter I took here.

Well, these are photographs taken in front of

the painting I was doing of Patrick Procktor

before the figure is put in.

You can just see these actually are windows in a painting.

This is a trip.

I decided to do the fairy tales,

illustrate Grimm's fairytales.

Well, I decided a long time ago,

and I just thought I'd take a trip down the Rhine

and look at all the castles, the fairytale castles,

and this is just on the way.

We went to Colmar first to see the Isenheim Altarpiece,

which I think is like the greatest painting in the world.

And then I just took photographs, as you can see,

of castles on the Rhine, really, just to get ...

some ...

mood and information for the fairy stories.

I mean, they're marvelous castles, actually, all the time.

It's a beautiful trip, isn't it?

I did a painting, actually,

I did a painting of this from that photograph.

I just thought that was so nice, and the little castle,

it's not too grand a castle.

There's something about it.

And I made a painting of it, actually.

I decided to do these because I like fairy stories.

I'd done some etchings from fairy stories

about eight years ago, nine years ago,

and I finally decided to do a book.

And I originally wanted to do 12 stories,

and finally I finished up only with six

because I got carried away with the illustration.

And this is a story about a princess who lived in a castle

and she could see everything

through her windows, 12 windows.

Nothing could hide from her.

And really, the story, as you know, actually,

it's just about a boy who, he hides in an egg first.

'cause then he can marry her, you see, and become the king.

Then he hides in a fish, and she always finds him.

But in the story, I kind of altered the story

a tiny bit in my illustration, because then the ...

In the story, the boy changes into a little sea hare,

which I have no idea what it's like.

It's a mythical beast, I think.

He hides in her hair, so that when she looks

through the window, where supposedly she can see everything,

she cannot see him, because not one is a mirror.

So I interpreted the story a little, really like,

it's really her desire for a child or something.

So I put the boy hiding inside of her,

which is what the story is about,

at least the boy is hiding in her hair, and it's her.

Occasionally I embellish the stories a little bit.

That's rapunzel growing in the garden.

That's just totally invented, 'cause I, again,

I couldn't even find a picture of what Rapunzel looked like.

In English it's called rampion.

I found that out.

But it's a little green salad something, isn't it?

You eat it.

But I don't know ...

So I made it up and there it is.

The story, this story I didn't alter much

other than the fact that the witch,

the wicked witch, and the enchantress she's called in here,

wants the child, she wants to steal the child from them.

So I assumed that, if she wanted to steal a child,

it was because she was so old and ugly

that no man would go to bed with her,

so she had to steal a child because she couldn't have one.

So really it was like a virgin and child, you see,

and that's what that is, it's a virgin and child,

but it's done from a Hieronymus Bosch Madonna,

but the face, of course, is altered.

I had to make her look ugly.

The little trees are done from Leonardo da Vinci.

And there's Rapunzel with all the long her.

She has the long hair, and that's how she ...

The tower, she lets the hair out of the tower,

and the old witch climbs up,

And the prince comes to save her in the end.

And there's the prince and the bit of tower there,

and the hair down there.

And that's done from Uccello.

It's a detail from a little painting of Uccello

in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Oh, this is the story of Rumpelstiltskin,

who changes straw in o gold,

so the straw becomes gold here.

There's a room full of straw

waiting to be changed into gold.

And this is called straw on the left, gold on the right.

It's just to show that straw is very soft and gold is hard.

And there's Rumpelstiltskin pleading for the child.

Again, he wants the child from the princess

for making the straw into gold.

This you might recognize is done from Carpaccio

that Carpaccio painting of the two ladies on the balcony.

The head is simpler.

And then he rides round the fire on a cooking spook,

reciting his name, and the people hear it.

The last illustration in the book

is when she finds out his name, he's so annoyed

he stamps his foot into the ground,

pulls it out with such force he rips it off

and rips himself apart.

And here he is all apart, you see, floating about.

And that's the stories.

And I hope, actually, to do another six, maybe,

in two or three years time.

And there was that church tower

you might recognize from the picture in the book.

Oh, those were pictures of Prince Charles playing polo,

because Time Magazine asked me if I'd do a cover of him.

I refused at first, and then they really talked me into it,

much against my own judgment.

I did a drawing.

He wouldn't pose.

I phoned up, and I said, "Would he pose?"

And somebody said, "Oh, there's a hundred artists

"waiting to draw Prince Charles."

I said, "How do you mean?

"There aren't a hundred artists in England.

"What are you talking about?"

They said, "You have to take a place in the queue.

So in the end I had to do a little drawing

from a photograph, and he wasn't ...

I didn't like it at all.

Time Magazine, in the end, never used it,

and I shall never do it again. (chuckles)

I think that's a nice photograph.

I mean, I think sometimes they can just exist as photographs

and I'm not really interested all the time in painting.

And also, this ...

Once you've got six volumes like this,

the thing becomes slightly obsessive,

and you take more and more

because you want more and more books.

You tend to want to record more and more.

That's stuck out.

Right now I'm think I must go and take lots and lots

of photographs of all the little shops on Paris tours.

I must take Mrs. Evans in the grocery shop

and the dry cleaners, just to make a recording of it.

Again, this is just friends.

Oh, this was something I was going to paint and I never did,

but I might still do it,

'cause I think it's a rather lovely thing.

It's a vast room in the art school in Hamburg.

I went to give a talk there.

This is a polished floor, a very, very polished floor,

and they had these windows that looked,

because the room was quite dark inside,

they looked like paintings of a landscape, four of them.

And then this marvelous soft version of it

reflected in the shiny floor.

And I thought it would make a nice painting.

I still do, actually.

I think, you know, I still might do it next year.