A transvestite who appears in John Waters' films, Divine sat for Hockney in the artist's Hollywood Hills studio. Hockney started to visit Los Angeles in the mid-60s, and he quickly grew to love Southern California. The very colors of Divine's clothes, and the bright, loud gladness of the background, imply that both the sitter and his environment are eliciting the attention of other people. Yet Divine, a performer, fits neatly in with Hockney's other intensely socialized figures precisely because Hockney casts all of his subjects in a social role.