Hockney’s Housewife: An Evening with James Cahill in Cambridge

Join British author and critic James Cahill as he discusses his new book on David Hockney with Fitzwilliam Museum Director Luke Syson.
About this Event

Join British author and critic James Cahill as he discusses his new book on David Hockney. In The Beverly Hills Housewife, Cahill provides readers with a panoramic view of 1960s LA and Californian culture through the eyes of artist and subject: the youthful fascination of David Hockney and the knowing gaze of enigmatic socialite Betty Freeman. Oscillating between art history and anecdote, this is an eclectic study of an artist, his enigmatic muse and the beginning of a friendship that would shape the course of each of their lives. James Cahill will be in conversation with Fitzwilliam Museum Director and Marlay Curator Luke Syson.

James Cahill is a British author and critic based between Los Angeles and London. He originally studied classics and English at Magdalen College, Oxford, followed by a master’s degree in contemporary European art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and a PhD in classics at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of critically acclaimed novels The Violet Hour (2025) and Tiepolo Blue (2022) which was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and selected for H.M. The Queen’s Reading Room. He also writes regularly for publications including Artforum, the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Spectator. Cahill has curated several exhibitions spanning contemporary art and classical antiquity.

Luke Syson joined the Fitzwilliam Museum as Director and Marlay Curator in February 2019 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he had worked since 2012. Prior to joining the Met, Luke was Curator of Italian Painting Before 1500 and Head of Research at the National Gallery in London. He also had a leading role in the team that planned the new Medieval and Renaissance art galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum.