Peter Schlesinger


Peter Schlesinger is an American artist, author and former artist's model, perhaps most well known for being the subject in numerous notable canvases by the British painter David Hockney.

Biography

Peter Schlesinger was an 18-year-old student at UCLA when he met the then 28-year-old artist David Hockney, who was teaching a summer class at the university. They began a long affair; Schlesinger relocated with Hockney to London, where he subsequently undertook to study at the Slade School of Art. Whilst in a relationship with Hockney, he was often the artist's subject and muse; he appears in some of Hockney's best-known works, including Portrait of an Artist —which, in 2018, sold for over $90 million, setting the monetary record for a painting by a living artist—, Peter Schlesinger with Polaroid Camera, and Peter Getting Out of Nick's Pool.
Schlesinger went on to pursue his own career as a visual artist, creating sculptures, paintings and photographs.

Books

His photography is the subject of two volumes for which he also wrote the text; A Chequered Past and Peter Schlesinger: A Photographic Memory 1968–1989.

Personal life

The 1974 film A Bigger Splash is about the breakup of Schlesinger's relationship with Hockney.
Schlesinger's current partner is the Swedish photographer Eric Bowman, with whom he shares a home in Bellport on Long Island.