Abstract
David Hockney's art has been widely interpreted as chronicling the "everyday life of ordinary people." To the extent Hockney does that, it also chronicles a legal context. Hockney's own homosexuality forms the basis for art that can be read as legal story, distilling an image of the world around him that reflects it as it is experienced rather than its pure aesthetics. His work in the early sixties intentionally engages with homosexuality as a source of tension in British society. Concurrent to debate following the release of the Wolfenden Report in 1957 recommending the decriminalisation of private acts of homosexual behaviour, his work reflects the function of both specific law and the legal system more broadly in shaping homosexual temporalities. Hockney's work in this period is an excellent example of how art can be seen as a reflection of the social reality of law, and thus, how it can help us understand law's social consequences. This dissertation evaluates how Hockney's work examines the homosexual experience throughout the early sixties, during a time of accelerated discussion on homosexual law reform, and how this work reflects law of the past and law into the future. The social reality of law that art demonstrates therefore utilises a broader temporal understanding of the effect on law on homosexuals.