This vital new book is published to accompany the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2012.
David Hockney has always been closely associated with Pop Art and California, where he has lived for much of his life but this major study of his work redefines him as an important painter of the English countryside, presenting his recent landscapes for the first time. In an attempt to renew contemporary art, Hockney has returned to painting in the open air, observing with honesty and intensity the scenery of his childhood in East Yorkshire.
Co-curator of the exhibition Marco Livingstone explores this bold departure in the context of Hockney's sixty-year career, while other contributors address the artist's place in the landscape tradition, his recent video works and their relationship to English landscape film-making, and his ongoing use of new technologies.
'I used to point out, at art school you can teach the craft; it's the poetry you can't teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft.'