Overview

In this fascinating and entertaining second volume, Christopher Simon Sykes explores the life and work of Britain's most popular living artist.   David Hockney is one of the most influential and best-loved artists of the twentieth century. His career has spanned and epitomized the art movements of the past five decades. Picking up Hockney's story in 1975, this book finds him flitting between Notting Hill and California, where he took inspiration for the swimming pool series of paintings; creating acclaimed set designs for operas around the world; and embracing emerging technologies—the Polaroid camera and fax machine in the seventies and eighties and, most recently, the iPad. Hockney's boundless energy extends to his personal life too, and this volume illuminates the glamorous circles he moves in, as well as his sometimes turbulent relationships. Christopher Simon Sykes has been granted exclusive and unprecedented access to Hockney's paintings, notebooks, and diaries, and a great number of them are reproduced here. Featuring interviews with family, friends, and Hockney himself, this is a lively and revelatory account of an acclaimed artist and an extraordinary man.

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9780385535908

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Reviews

The timing couldn't be better for this enjoyable and well-sourced book, which -- like Hockney's own work -- is both conversational and perceptive. -- Los Angeles Times An entertaining and intimate biography which leaves no aspect of the artist's life unexplored. -- Associated Press What Mr. Sykes does best in these pages is capture Mr. Hockney's almost preternatural love of making images, his passion for art, which dates to his earliest childhood ... Mr. Sykes offers some fascinating accounts of the evolution of certain well-known Hockney paintings and in doing so, traces the autobiographical impulses in Mr. Hockney's work, his peregrinations from London to Paris to Los Angeles, his frank embrace of homosexual themes and his relationships with family, friends and lovers. --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Fluid, entertaining....Meticulously researched, Sykes's account is a pleasure to read. -- The New Yorker To read Christopher Simon Sykes' David Hockney is to marvel at the artistic gifts of the eccentric Yorkshireman who rose from a sometimes pinched childhood to hobnob with poet Stephen Spender and novelist Christopher Isherwood, to party with Mick Jagger and Manolo Blahnik. -- The Plain Dealer Sykes' writing has a real raconteurial flair ... Along with Hockney's personal successes and travails, Sykes pays close attention to the art. He takes you inside Hockney's head, noting the artist's dissatisfaction with even some of his most highly regarded paintings and recording Hockney's thoughts on such artistic challenges as painting water. -- The Seattle Times Energetic, absorbing ... Sykes skillfully integrates Hockney's private history with his public, artistic life to provide unusual insight into both his emotional and professional life. -- Publishers Weekly Intimate, vivid ... A personal, lively look at this extraordinary artist's career. Readers will eagerly await th

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Author Information

CHRISTOPHER SIMON SYKES is a photographer and writer. He specializes in architectural and garden photography and writes on architecture and social history. Sykes worked with Eric Clapton on his autobiography, Clapton, and his work has appeared in publications such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, and Architectural Digest. He lives with his wife and daughter in North London.

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