Video
In the studio with David Hockney RA
David Hockney RA talks to curator Edith Devaney in his Los Angeles studio, just before his Royal Academy exhibition ‘82 Portraits and 1 Still-life’ in 2016.
David Hockney RA (b. 1937)
David Hockney studied at Bradford School of Art from 1953 to 1957 and the Royal College of Art from 1959 until 1962. He was awarded the Royal College of Art gold medal in 1962 in recognition of his mastery as a draughtsman and his innovative paintings. His early work was stylistically diverse, combining graffiti-like images with quotations from the poetry of Walt Whitman.
Hockney moved to Los Angeles in 1963. He produced highly evocative, sometimes homoerotic, iconic images of urban life. By the late 1960s his work had become more naturalistic but it was always characterised by Hockney’s alertness to the psychological and emotional resonance of his subject matter.
Hockney’s work also includes landscapes, photography, printmaking and stage designs for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Los Angeles Music Centre Opera.
Recent solo exhibitions have included the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2012), and Galerie Lelong, Paris (2013). The Royal Academy’s blockbuster David Hockney: A Bigger Picture opened in 2012, featuring large-scale works inspired by the East Yorkshire landscape.
After 2012, Hockney turned away from painting and from his Yorkshire home, returning to Los Angeles. Slowly he began to return to the quiet contemplation of portraiture. Over the months that followed, he became absorbed by the genre, creating a series of artworks that became the 2016 exhibition David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life
Profile
Born: 1937 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
Nationality: British
Elected ARA: 20 May 1985
Elected RA: 26 June 1991
Elected Senior RA: 1 October 2012
Gender: Male
Preferred media: Painting, Printmaking, Photography, and Theatre design
Works associated with David Hockney in the RA Collection
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David Hockney RA - Selected CV
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Recent Solo Exhibitions
2017 Tate Britain, London
2016 Royal Academy of Arts
2015 Pace Gallery, New York
2014 Dulwich Picture Gallery
2013 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Galerie Lelong, Paris
2012-13 Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford
2012 Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Royal Academy of Arts
2011 Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark
2010 Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, Paris
Southbank Centre, London
2009 Nottingham Contemporary
Pace Wildenstein, New York
Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Kunsthalle Würth, Künzelsau, Germany -
Selected Collections
Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Norway
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles USA
National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff
Tate, England
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, England
York City Art Gallery, England -
Selected Publications
That’s the Way I See It, David Hockney, Thames and Hudson, 1999
Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, David Hockney, Thames and Hudson, 2001
Hockney on Art, David Hockney, Little Brown, 2002
Hockney by Hockney, David Hockney, Thames and Hudson, 1988
David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, Ulrich Luckhardt and Paul Melia, Thames and Hudson, 2001
David Hockney, Marco Livingstone (World of Art Series), Thames and Hudson, 1996
Outlines: David Hockney, Peter Adam, Absolute Press, 1997
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David Hockney SUMO limited edition book
A Bigger Book is David Hockney RA’s “definitive visual autobiography”.
This epic technicolour tome is a Tashen SUMO signed limited edition of 9000 documenting Hockney’s entire career, from 1953 to 2016. He has spent over 60 years questioning “How do we see and how do I depict that?” to iconic effect.
“I don’t tend to live in the past,” he comments, “Working on this book, I see quite how much I have done… I know the book is going to last 100 years, at least.”
Complemented by a bold, primary coloured bookstand designed by Marc Newson, the book features key works such as A Bigger Grand Canyon, Bigger Trees near Warter and A Bigger Splashand is also available in an art edition of 250 with an exclusive signed inkjet print.
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