David Hockney’s last self-portrait that went on show while he lived, in 2025’s Paris retrospective, has a Droste effect: the figure holds a picture in which the figure holds a picture. Between the fingers of one hand, a paintbrush; of the other, a cigarette. He could have been smoking and smoking and smoking into infinity. That’s the elemental truth of the work, and even while that turned out not to be literally true – he died this week, aged 88 – he gave it his best shot.
The painting is titled Play within a Play within a Play and Me with a Cigarette, and it got him into a scrap with the authorities of the Paris Metro, who said a photo of it couldn’t be used to advertise the show, since it contravened regulations – it is a pretty common rule that you’re not allowed to glamorise smoking lest you influence the young. “The bossiness of those in charge of our lives knows no limits,” he said at the time. “Art has always been a path to free expression and this is a dismal [decision].”
Bossiness was his bête noir – he often wore a badge that said: “End bossiness soon.” Whether or not the work really did glamorise the habit is an open question since, although nattily dressed in houndstooth, Hockney didn’t exactly look in rude health.
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The smoking could have been an act of artistic self-fashioning, to join the ranks of other celebrated smokers – Picasso, Monet – to whom Hockney paid homage as fag forebears. But if you saw it as he did, you wouldn’t be looking for reasons. He smoked because he really loved smoking, and he did it all the time. » | Zoe Williams | Saturday, June 13, 2026
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