Hockney Schlesinger Boman

Hockney's 'Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)' recently sold for $90.3m and became the most expensive artwork ever by a living artist, easily beating the previous record of $58.4m for a Jeff Koons' 'Balloon Dog' sculpture. The painting depicts Peter Schlesinger looking at an underwater swimmer (his new boyfriend?) and was painted by a sad Hockney after his break-up with Schlesinger. It's said that Hockney wanted to convey his pain at Schlesinger's search for a new lover. 

Interestingly, shortly after this painting was finished, Schlesinger hooked up with new lover Eric Boman. Even more interestingly, I remember Boman as a student at the Royal College of Art. When he sauntered into the canteen at lunchtime, dozens of swooning girls (and a few lads) would murmur "By 'eck, he's gorgeous!", and indeed he was (and still is, judging by recent photos). But, to the ladies' disappointment he was gay and rumoured to be part of the Hockney set (thereby causing mass slitting of wrists and suicidal leaping out of canteen windows - the canteen was on the ground floor - by some of the girls, and mass holding in of beerguts while preening in front of mirrors by some of the chaps). 

After leaving the RCA, Boman achieved fame as a Vogue photographer, despite a common belief that he was pretty enough to be in front of the camera rather than behind it. Having researched this painting I've discovered that it features a south of France pool, not a Californian one. Also, Schlesinger (in pink jacket) wasn't there - his pose photo was taken in Kensington Gardens. And the swimmer was actually John St. Clair (who hurt his head on the bottom of the pool when diving in so Hockney could photograph him underwater) not Boman (though Boman may well be the person Hockney was depicting). And Schlesinger and Boman are still together living in New York about 40-odd years later. I wonder if Hockney still sees them.