BOOK: David Hockney-220 for 2020, Taschen Publications

David Hockney first emerged in the early 1960s during the height of British pop, then moved to Los Angeles in 1964, where he famously painted a series of swimming pool pictures. Alongside the classic genres of portraiture and landscape, he always kept evolving his art, using technologies such as Polaroids, photocopiers and fax machines, digital video, or the iPhone and iPad as tools for his painting.  Locked down in Normandy, from a small, picturesque farmhouse in the rich fields and meadows, David Hockney followed the changing seasons across 2020 and into the new year. He used his iPad to spontaneously depict impressions of the landscape surrounding him, David Hockney closely followed the changing seasons, using his iPad to spontaneously depict his impressions of the surrounding landscape. The project became a lifeline for him, and a message of hope he offered to us. For the edition of 1,620 artist’s books “David Hockney. 220 for 2020” by Taschen Publications, Hockney has compiled 220 (plus four bonus) iPad paintings from 2020, each illustration tipped in on blue paper stock. The book is accompanied by a smaller extra volume of ink and watercolor drawings: the complete facsimiles of two sketchbooks from 2019, starting in the vicinity of the artist’s Los Angeles home and following him along scouting trips around Normandy.-Efi Michalarou