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THE paint has barely dried on these portraits by David Hockney, Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artist published for the first time in The Times today.

A striking depiction of the artist, standing with brushes in hand as he paints one of the portraits in his studio, is among six virtually life-size yet intimate paintings of friends.

They will be unveiled at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, hanging alongside more than 1,200 works that have been selected for this year’s Summer Exhibition, from June 7 until August 15.

The sitters are Americans he has befriended in Los Angeles, each dressed rather formally. Hockney encouraged them to wear these outfits because he had tired of painting people wearing jeans.

An artist for whom experimentation is part of creativity, Hockney has returned to painting in oil, inspired by his recent experiences with watercolour.

The quick-drying properties of watercolour meant that he had to work at speed, which has influenced his painting in oil. He worked with feverish intensity: oil portraits that once took weeks or months to paint, were created in as little as a day.

Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, the newly appointed president of the Royal Academy, said: “They make an impressive impression.”

The Summer Exhibition has been held every year since 1769, uninterrupted even by war, and is the world’s largest open-submission contemporary art exhibition, attracting about 100,000 visitors a year.

The exhibition continues the tradition of displaying a wide range of new work by established and unknown artists in all media, including painting, print-making, sculpture and architecture.

The academy was this year inundated with more than 9,000 entrants. But there is room for only 10 per cent of the submissions, chosen by the committee that governs the institution.

The focus this year will be the use of multiple images or objects across all media.

Ed Ruscha, elected an Honorary Academician last year and representing America at this year’s Venice Biennale, will be the featured artist in one of the galleries, the main focus being on his multiple works.

Self portrait