David Hockney had been friends with Ossie Clark for several years when he painted this marriage portrait. Clark and Birtwell had married in 1969, and Hockney had been Best Man. They did have a cat called Percy, but the cat in the painting was actually called Blanche; Hockney thought 'Percy' made for a better title.
Clark and Birtwell enjoyed a very fruitful professional partnership, but they divorced in 1974. Clark was stabbed to death in 1996, aged 54, by his former lover Diego Cogolato.
© Haydn Thompson 2017