David Hockney

Praise

“The Hockney who emerges from Sykes’s biography is far from an average artist. Relentlessly curious, ambitious and irreverent, he never rests on any laurels nor stays in one place for very long.”
—Washington Post

“Chapter by chapter, the book unfolds as a series of love affairs, in which the workaholic artist falls madly in love with a new art-making medium — fax machines, Polaroids and iPads, to name a few — puzzles over its problems and potential, masters it and moves on … Sykes has an engaging style and an enviable ability to write clearly about art.”
—Associated Press

“Drawing on interviews with Hockney, his siblings, and colleagues; Hockey’s autobiography; and diaries of famous friends, such as Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender, Sykes matches his subject’s ebullience in this admiring, well-researched life.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Sykes continues his meticulously detailed, multivolume biography of the ever-replenishing font of creativity that is artist David Hockney … Sykes articulates all the verve, ingenuity, and complex struggles involved in the protean Hockney’s deep inquiry into the nature of perception while also illuminating his influences, from his ‘great hero,’ Picasso, to Ingres, Thomas Moran, and Chinese scrolls, and recounting his eager embrace of new technologies and the resultant complex photo collages, sumptuous iPad drawings, and stunning, high definition videos.”
—Booklist