David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective

David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective by Paul Melia. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780811813143.

David Hockney is perhaps the most widely celebrated artist of recent decades, producing work in almost every medium - painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking - as well as designing critically acclaimed sets for the stage. David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective brings together for the first time an exciting selection of Hockneys work on paper and in sketchbooks, presenting many drawings that have never been reproduced before - including several from the artists personal collection. Spanning his entire career, from 1954 to the present, these images show how drawing lies at the very heart of Hockneys work, a fundamental aspect of his graphic approach to every medium. Among the pieces reproduced here are portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and images of California and the other places Hockney has visited, together with subjects that reveal more personal aspects of the artists life. Authoritative essays by Ulrich Luckhardt and Paul Melia, curators of the first major retrospective of Hockneys drawings in fifteen years, examine the artists skills as a draftsman, presenting a chronological view of his evolving style and technique, and placing the drawings in the context of his work as a whole. Biographical notes and a select bibliography are also included, making David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective an invaluable source of reference as well as a beguiling and dazzling compendium of drawings by one of the most important artists of the twentieth century.