In the fall of 1971 David Hockney paints Rubber Ring floating in a Swimming Pool. He said it was "almost copied from a photograph" taken in Cadaques (Spain) where he had spent the summer.

"At first glance it looks like an abstract painting but when you read the title the abstraction disappears and it becomes something else"

The emoji with the sun and cloud refers to the state of mind of Hockney who had broke up with David Schlesinger that summer. even tough the painting does not refer to the relationship, the fact that no human being is represented could be the reflection of a feeling of loneliness from the artist.

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His friend Henry Geldzahler, curator for American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art said about it "he's interested in modernism, he's interested in goofing it, in learning from it, in painting now, he's interested in the whole panoply"

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Sources: David Hockney a rake's progress, Christopher Simon Sykes