When the Yorkshire-born artist discovered the iPhone as an artistic medium, just over a decade ago, he opened up entirely new possibilities for painting – the device was simple to use and he didn’t even have to get out of bed to start work.
In 2010, he moved on to the brand new iPad: its larger screen and built-in Brushes app opened up even more possibilities, artistically and practically.
“The iPhone was more about the relationship between the hand and the ear, whereas this is all about the hand and the eye and makes for far better co-ordination,” he told the London Evening Standard that year.
He created a set of uniquely personal images of the view from – and the objects immediately inside – his window, which have now been brought together in a vibrant new book suitably entitled My Window.
The new ‘baby sumo’ book is published by art specialists TASCHEN, whose previous outing with Hockney, the spectacular A Bigger Book, was a huge success with collectors, including at the Artmarket Gallery.
Each of the 120 pictures in the volume, all created between 2009 and 2012 and arranged by Hockney himself in chronological order, captures a specific moment in time, from early morning sunrises to dusk and nightfall, and travels through the seasons.
Intimate details of objects both inside and outside the window give a unique insight into his world, and how he sees it.
This large-format, crisp resolution, artist’s book comes in four Art Editions, each with a print of an iPhone or iPad drawing. The first 250 – Art Edition A – is completed by drawing No. 535, created on 28 June 2009, which features a vase of brilliant pink flowers – we’re putting our money on peonies – on a yellow sill below a window framed by a white shutter.
Both the book and the print are personally signed by David Hockney.
There are three further Art Editions with different prints, and also a signed Collector’s Edition (numbers 1,001 to 2,000).