David Hockney | A Bigger Book

David Hockney | A Bigger Book
Hardcover, three vols. in slipcase
24.3 x 30.4 cm, 6.54 kg
1096 pages
ISBN 978-3-8365-9433-2
Edition: English, French, German (Famous First Edition)

David Hockney | A Bigger Book. This SUMO publication, A Bigger Book is a majestic visual survey of David Hockney’s art. In it, Hockney takes stock of more than 60 years of work, from his teenage days at art school up to his recent extensive series of portraits, iPad drawings, and Yorkshire landscapes. Never before has Hockney’s oeuvre been published in such scope, with such investment from the artist, and on such an astonishing, immersive scale.

Never before has Hockney’s oeuvre been published on such an astonishing and immersive scale. As each page unfurls in a blaze of blues, pinks, greens, and oranges, we are spellbound both by the artist’s vibrancy as a colourist and his extraordinary sense of the conditions of the world that surrounds us. Through Hockney’s restless interrogation of perception and representation, we witness the mellow sheen of light on a muddy Yorkshire puddle, the ochre enormities of A Bigger Grand Canyon, the rustic majesty of Bigger Trees near Warter, and, of course, A Bigger Splash, with the exquisite sparkle of a turquoise pool beneath an iridescent California sky. These major paintings are joined by the artist’s drawings, photo-composites, multi-perspective collages, stage designs, multi-camera video works, and iPad drawings, each a panoply of looking and showing in different styles and media.

Hockney himself is present in every aspect of the publication. He collaborated closely through all production stages and conceived of this book as a purely visual survey of more than 450 works prefaced by a handwritten programmatic statement. As an artist who rarely looks back, the vast volume is as much his own personal review as it is a definitive record for art lovers all over the world. “I don’t tend to live in the past,” he comments, “Working on this book, I see quite how much I have done.”

The book’s sumptuous portfolio is supplemented by an illustrated chronology of more than 600 pages, contextualising Hockney’s art with drawings, graphic work, portrait photos, and text based on the artist’s own writings as well as contemporary reviews. A Bigger Book is presented on a Marc Newson bookstand.

Collector’s Edition of 9,000 copies (No. 1,001–10,000), each signed by David Hockney and with a Marc Newson bookstand.

Also available as four separate Art Editions of 250 copies each (No. 1–1,000), with alternative signed iPad drawings and a Marc Newson bookstand.

David Hockney

David Hockney (born July 9, 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. He first emerged in the early 1960s during the height of British pop, then moved to Los Angeles in 1964, where he famously painted a series of swimming pool pictures. Alongside the classic genres of portraiture and landscape, he always kept evolving his art, using technologies such as Polaroids, photocopiers and fax machines, digital video, or the iPhone and iPad as tools for his painting. Since his first big survey exhibition, which in 1970 traveled Europe from the Whitechapel Gallery in London, he has been one of the most widely shown and popular artists of our time.