A Bigger Message
Conversations with David Hockney
Published on 3. April 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-500-29835-0 (ISBN)
Description
The bestselling book of conversations between David Hockney and art critic Martin Gayford as they explore the nature of creativity.
David Hockney's exuberant work is highly praised and widely loved, but he is also something else: an incisive and original thinker on art. In this now classic book, filled with anecdote, insight, passion and wit, Hockney reveals the fruits of his lifelong meditations on the problems and paradoxes of representing a three-dimensional world on a flat surface. Compiled from a decade and a half of conversations with art critic Martin Gayford, it reflects a period in which Hockney relocated from Los Angeles to his native East Yorkshire. Their exchanges communicate the immense delight and inspiration that Hockney finds in the changing seasons and natural splendours of this sparsely inhabited corner of England - a delight that is, in the words of Margaret Drabble, 'an invitation to us all to look better, see better, enjoy more'.
David Hockney's exuberant work is highly praised and widely loved, but he is also something else: an incisive and original thinker on art. In this now classic book, filled with anecdote, insight, passion and wit, Hockney reveals the fruits of his lifelong meditations on the problems and paradoxes of representing a three-dimensional world on a flat surface. Compiled from a decade and a half of conversations with art critic Martin Gayford, it reflects a period in which Hockney relocated from Los Angeles to his native East Yorkshire. Their exchanges communicate the immense delight and inspiration that Hockney finds in the changing seasons and natural splendours of this sparsely inhabited corner of England - a delight that is, in the words of Margaret Drabble, 'an invitation to us all to look better, see better, enjoy more'.
Reviews / Votes
'A remarkable picture of Britain's greatest living artist' - Daily Telegraph 'Elegantly and simply written' - Observer 'A rewarding book that turns out to be far more than simply the story of how and why Hockney made his most recent pictures. It offers a series of snappy essays on the complicated act of looking' - Times Literary SupplementMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
with over 180 illustrations in colour and black and white
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
526 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-500-29835-0 (9780500298350)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
05/2016
Thames & Hudson Ltd
€40.99
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Martin Gayford is a writer and art critic. His books include Spring Cannot be Cancelled and A History of Pictures, both with David Hockney; Man with a Blue Scarf (in which he recounts the experience of being painted by Freud); Modernists and Mavericks; Shaping the World: Sculpture from Prehistory to Now, with Antony Gormley; Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud, 1939-1954, with David Dawson; Venice: City of Pictures; and How Painting Happens (and why it matters), all published by Thames & Hudson.