Fascinated with the rich tradition and youthful creativity of London in the 1960s and longing to leave suburban America, a wide-eyed twenty-year-old Californian named Peter Schlesinger arrived in 1968 with his partner, David Hockney, to study painting at the Slade School of Art. He stayed on for ten years and moved in some of the city's most intriguing social and artistic circles. Manolo Blahnik, Paloma Picasso, Ossie Clark, Cecil Beaton, Bianca Jagger, Christopher Isherwood, and Bryan Ferry - all became friends of the bright and talented Schlesinger, along with other prominent figures in the worlds of art, ballet, music, photography, film, and society.<BR>Schlesinger was one of Hockney's favorite models and he appears in many of his most important paintings of this period, but he was a gifted artist in his own right, with a tireless interest in documenting the amazing world of London bohemia in which he found himself. His privileged position during these extraordinary years resulted in literally thousands of intimate photographs of friends and acquaintances in everyday situations, taken both at home in London and on numerous trips to continental Europe. Featuring 180 of the most artful and revealing images, Checkered Past guides us with a wry eye through the artists' studios, fashion shows, grand country houses, and gay discos that made London such a magnet during the late 1960s and early 1970s.