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David Hockney

David Hockney Books

Photographer

David Hockney is a renowned British photographer, born on July 9, 1937. His works are known for their unique perspective and color application, which have had a profound impact on the development of photographic art.

David Hockney

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Hockney on photography: conversations w...

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True to life: twenty-five years of conv...

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David Hockney photographs

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Art & Design

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David Hockney: a retrospective

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David Hockney: grafiek

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Portrait of David Hockney

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Travels with Pen, Pencil and Ink

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Related Quotes

“Artists, real artists, have to work. They can’t be hedonists. Really good painters are always working. The world is such a marvelous place. You have to look and to work. That’s exactly why Van Gogh was such a great artist: total commitment. That’s what you need.”

Art Work Commitment Painters

Author:David Hockney

“People from the village come up and tease me: 'We hear you've started drawing on your telephone.' And I tell them, 'Well, no, actually, it's just that occasionally I speak on my sketch pad,'”

People Wells Speak Come Up Drawing Village Telephones Tease Pads Tease Me

Author:David Hockney

“There's a Chinese proverb that says it all: Painting is an old man's art.”

Men Art Painting Chinese Old Man Chinese Proverb

Author:David Hockney

“We need all kinds of artists. We have no need to destroy drawing. We lose so much. This wouldn't happen in music.”

Needs Kind Happens Artist Loses Drawing All Kinds

Author:David Hockney

“Loads of people, particularly artists, hate pretty pictures. Now I've never met anyone who didn't like a pretty face.”

People Faces Artist Hate Beauty Mets Load Pretty Face Pretty Picture

Author:David Hockney

“Until cubism, all art, all pictures, could be 'read' by anybody. If this hadn't been so, the Christian message wouldn't have been seen by peasants and its importance would have been diminished.”

Ifs Has Beens Art Christian Messages Importance Peasants Cubism

Author:David Hockney

“Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I'd never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the exact moment, but I'd always be thinking a little bit ahead. That's especially so in a drawing where you are limiting yourself, a line drawing for example. When you are doing them you are very tense, because you have to reduce everything to such simple terms.”

Thinking Littles Moments Would Be Bits Term Lines Simple Saws Example Little Bit Draws Drawing Where You Are Tense Concentrating Ipads Limiting Yourself

Author:David Hockney

“The only people who need degrees are dentists and brain surgeons.”

People Needs Brain Education Degrees Surgeons Dentist Brain Surgeons

Author:David Hockney

“No one has ever asked to see my degree certificate.”

Education Degrees Certificates

Author:David Hockney

“When you're very young, you suddenly find this marvellous freedom. It's quite exciting, and you're prepared to do anything.”

Young Freedom Exciting Prepared Marvellous

Author:David Hockney

“Future art that is based on appearances won't look like the art that's gone before. Even revivals of a period are not the same.”

Looks Art Gone Periods Future Appearance Revival

Author:David Hockney

“There would be no bohemia without smoking.”

Would Be Habit Smoking Bohemia

Author:David Hockney

“Paint something every day.”

Author:David Hockney

“I am constantly preoccupied with how to remove distance so that we can all come closer together, so that we can all begin to sense we are the same, we are one.”

Together Humanity Distance Remove

Author:David Hockney

“No matter what the illusion created, it is a flat canvas and it has to be organized into shapes.”

Matter Shapes Illusion No Matter What Organized Flats Canvas

Book:David Hockney

Source: David Hockney

“I'm coming 'round to the view that there's only a personal view of the world.”

World Views Rounds Individuality Personal Views

Author:David Hockney

“Any artist will tell you he's really only interested in the stuff he's doing now. He will, always. It's true, and it should be like that.”

Should Artist Stuff Interest

Author:David Hockney

“Dawn is about luminosity and so is the iPhone... The little drawings of the dawn are done while I'm still in bed... If you're in my kind of business you'd be a fool to sleep through that... Artists can't work office hours, can they?”

Ifs Kind Littles Stills Done Light Artist Hours Sleep Fool Bed Office Drawing Dawn Iphone Office Hours

Author:David Hockney

“Before he did all those lovely line drawings, Matisse would make really detailed charcoal drawings and tear them up. He wouldn't leave them about... I understand what he was doing: discovering what's there... to make the line meaningful, to find a linear solution.”

Lines Tears Solutions Drawing Meaningful Lovely Discovering Linear Charcoal Matisse

Author:David Hockney

“I love California; everything is so artificial.”

Love California Artificial

Author:David Hockney

“No theoretician, no writer on art, however interesting he or she might be, could be as interesting as Picasso. A good writer on art may give you an insight to Picasso, but, after all, Picasso was there first.”

Giving Firsts May Art Might Interesting Masters Insight Good Writers

Book:Hockney on photography: conversations with Paul Joyce

Source: Hockney on photography: conversations with Paul Joyce

“Once my hand has drawn something my eye has observed, I know it by heart, and I can draw it again without a model.”

Knows Heart I Can Hands Eye Models Draws

Author:David Hockney

“I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's have a look in the mirror.' When you are alone and you look in a mirror you never put on a pleasing smile. Well, you don't, do you?”

Thinking Wells Looks Periods Draws Mirrors Grim

Author:David Hockney

“If you go too far with naturalism, there is no need to even organize; just look... and paint what you see until the canvas ends.”

Ifs Needs Looks Ends Nature Paint Canvas Organize Naturalism

Author:David Hockney

“It is difficult to say why I decided I wanted to be an artist. Obviously, I had some facility, more than other people, but sometimes facility comes because one is more interested in looking at things, examining them, more interested in the visual world than other people are.”

People World Sometimes Wanted Artist Difficult Decided Observation Visuals Facility Examining

Book:David Hockney

Source: David Hockney

“In art, new ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling; you can't divorce the two, as, we are now aware, you cannot have time without space and space without time.”

Way Mean Art Two Feelings Space Seeing Divorce Originality New Ways

Author:David Hockney

“The pictures on the walls aren't like movies. They don't move, they don't talk, and they'll last longer. They will last longer.”

Lasts Moving Painting Wall

Author:David Hockney

“Perspective is a law of optics... The Chinese did not have a system like it. Indeed, it is said they rejected the idea of the vanishing point in the eleventh century, because it meant the viewer was not there, indeed, had no movement, therefore was not alive.”

Said Ideas Law Alive Century Movement Perspective Chinese Rejected Viewers Vanishing Optics Vanishing Point

Author:David Hockney

“The vanishing point leads to the missiles of today, which can take us out of this world. It could be that the west's greatest mistakes were the 'invention' of the external vanishing point and the internal combustion engine.”

World Today Mistake This World Perspective West Invention Internals Engines Missiles Vanishing Combustion Vanishing Point

Author:David Hockney

“With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times fired a photographer at the beginning of the Iraq War for editing two shots together. Photography is crumbling. Certainly it is for the newspapers a bit now, isn't it? There will be painting again, absolutely!”

Two War Together Film Bits Painting Photography Shots Photographer Photograph Iraq Newspapers Experts Chemicals Editing Iraq War Crumbling

Author:David Hockney

“The video camera dominates art. It's a bore, it makes everything look a bit the same. If you look at things with a pencil and paper in your hand, you are going to see far more.”

Ifs Looks Art Hands Bits Paper Photography Cameras Video Bores Pencils Video Cameras

Author:David Hockney

“I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair.”

Thinking Should Art Made Facts Seems Pleasure Despair Art Is Contradiction Always Believe

Author:David Hockney

“Faces are the most interesting things we see; other people fascinate me, and the most interesting aspect of other people - the point where we go inside them - is the face. It tells all.”

People Faces Interesting Aspect Most Interesting Interesting Things Portraiture

Book:David Hockney photographs

Source: David Hockney photographs

“I believe that the problem of how you depict something is a formal problem. It's an interesting one and it's a permanent one; there's no solution to it. There are a thousand and one ways you can go about it. There's no set rule.”

Way Believe Problem I Believe Interesting Thousand Solutions One Way Permanent Formal

Book:David Hockney

Source: David Hockney

“The 'how' has a great effect on what we see. To say that 'what we see' is more important than 'how we see it' is to think that 'how' has been settled and fixed. When you realize this is not the case, you realize that 'how' often affects 'what' we see.”

Thinking Has Beens Important Realizing Cases Effects Fixed

Author:David Hockney

“The way we see things is constantly changing. At the moment the way we see things has been left a lot to the camera. That shouldn't necessarily be.”

Way Has Beens Moments Left Cameras

Author:David Hockney

“How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at once. We don't.”

Difficult Effects Cameras

Author:David Hockney

“I never talk when I'm drawing a person, especially if I'm making line drawings. I prefer there to be no noise at all so I can concentrate more.”

Ifs Persons I Can Lines Silence Drawing Noise

Book:David Hockney

Source: David Hockney

“I have never really done any teaching and maybe I should have done. I am not power-mad enough.”

Should Done Enough Teaching Should Have Mad

Author:David Hockney

“I thought the iPhone was great, but this takes it to a new level - simply because it's eight times the size of the iPhone, as big as a reasonably-sized sketchbook... Anyone who likes drawing and mark-making will like to explore new media.”

Bigs Levels Technology Media Mark Size Eight Drawing Likes Iphone New Media Sketchbooks

Author:David Hockney

“The lens is a tyranny.”

Author:David Hockney

“With watercolour, you can't cover up the marks. There's the story of the construction of the picture, and then the picture might tell another story as well.”

Wells Stories Might Mark Construction Cover Ups

Author:David Hockney

“Water colours are wet colours in water.”

Water Colour Wet

Author:David Hockney

“Just because I’m cheeky, doesn’t mean I’m not serious”

Mean Serious Cheeky

Author:David Hockney

“It's a myth that if you're liked by only four people it must be good. It might also be very bad: they might be your mother, your brother, your uncle and your aunt.”

People Ifs Might Mother Four Brother Myth Be Good Uncles Aunt Your Brother

Author:David Hockney

“What I always longed to do was to be able to paint like I can draw, most artists would tell you that, they would all like to paint like they can draw.”

I Can Able Artist Draws Paint

Book:Portrait of David Hockney

Source: Portrait of David Hockney

“How can Blair fight a war on terror? Terror is not an ideology or an army; terror is a technique.”

War Fighting Army Terror Technique Ideology War On Terror Blair

Author:David Hockney

“The choice is not between drugs and no drugs, but between illegal drugs and legal drugs. Until the 1920s drugs were legal, why not now? Lots of people are on drugs anyway - it is called medication.”

People Choices Drug Illegal Why Not Medication Illegal Drugs

Author:David Hockney

“There is nothing wrong with photography, if you don't mind the perspective of a paralysed Cyclops.”

Ifs Mind Perspective Photography Cyclops

Author:David Hockney

“If we are to change our world view, images have to change.”

Ifs World Views Our World World View

Book:Hockney on photography: conversations with Paul Joyce

Source: Hockney on photography: conversations with Paul Joyce

About the Author

Born: July 9, 1937
Known for: Photographer
Quotes: 227

Related Topics

Thinking Art People Ifs Drawing Painting Photography Artist Cameras Wells

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

David HockneyRelated source material

Hockney on photography: conversations with Paul JoyceRelated source material

True to life: twenty-five years of conversations with David HockneyRelated source material

David Hockney photographsRelated source material

Art & DesignRelated source material

David Hockney: a retrospectiveRelated source material

David Hockney: grafiekRelated source material

Portrait of David HockneyRelated source material

Travels with Pen, Pencil and InkRelated source material

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