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David Hockney Ditches His Paint Brushes To Create Art On The iPhone & iPad
By Mikelle Leow, 03 Dec 2019

Image via Francisco Anzola / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
English painter David Hockney, whose pool painting sale led to him clinching the then-world record for the highest-priced work by a living artist to be auctioned back in 2018, has had 120 of his high-tech artworks released by renowned art book publisher Taschen.
In 2009, Hockney discovered he could use the iPhone to create art from the comfort of his own bed. Since then, he’s been swapping his paintbrush for the iPhone and iPad; their instantaneity and ease let him create when inspiration struck as he looked out of his window to take in the changing seasons in his former East Yorkshire home.
Taschen’s new book David Hockney: My Window showcases 120 of those musings from 2009 to 2012, most of which are never-seen-before. According to the publisher, “each image depicts a fleeting moment—from the colorful sunrise and lilac morning sky to nighttime impressions, snow-covered branches and the arrival of spring.” Each copy is numbered and signed by Hockney himself.
Hockney, renowned for his dreamy, colorful paintings that contemplate relationships between his subjects, believes “pictures should speak for themselves,” according to The Guardian. Therefore, aside from the number and date of each artwork and whether it was illustrated via the Apple smartphone or tablet, the book’s only text is a short foreword.
“I started on the iPhone in 2009…” Hockney wrote. “There was great advantage in this medium because it’s backlit and I could draw in the dark. I didn’t ever have to get out of bed. Everything I needed was on the iPhone.”
Hockney also detailed that his iPhone artworks were drawn with his thumb, while his iPad creations were brought to life with a stylus to “get more details in.” As such, most of the 120 pieces were created with the iPad, while 44 were completed with the iPhone.
Book designer and editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, who worked on the book with Hockney, said there were many more high-tech works than the 120 curated for the literature. He also described the digital displays as “a kind of sketchbook” for the artist.
“For him, depicting the world is an ongoing moment,” Holzwarth added. “So the iPhone or the iPad is the perfect media for this.”
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[via The Guardian, images via various sources]
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