No comments about A Degas Sketchbook.

No comments about True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney.

No comments about David Hockney.

No comments about Cameraworks.

2 comments about David Hockney Portraits.

1. David Hockney is an artist whose works are familiar to everyone, whether from exposure to his many museum shows, his paintings and drawings included in every major survey of contemporary art, to his magical sets for operas such as The Magic Flute, Die Frau Ohne Schatten, The Rake's Progress, Tristan und Isolde, etc.
   
   This current book DAVID HOCKNEY PORTRAITS is, for this reader, the most sensitive presentation of Hockney not only as an artist but also as a tender, feeling, caring human being. The book accompanies an exhibition soon to travel and includes over 250 examples of Hockney's view of his family, himself, his friends - famous and not so famous-, lovers, and pets. The result is a survey of Hockney's people-oriented works over the past fifty years.
   
   Included are early pen and ink drawings from the 1950s, gentle and simple line portraits of his mother and father and himself, and progresses to the development of his large-scale paintings of life size portraits of family, lovers, and self-portraits. Many of the people depicted in these works are no longer alive and there is a sense of memory in some of the works that barely hides Hockney's sadness at their parting.
   
   The book also opens the door to Hockney's experimentation with photography as an art medium, with several of his multiple view Polaroid collages of a single 'sitting' telling more stories than a movie. And after Hockney's excursion into that medium the portraits turn to painting his subjects from life.
   
   Most of the works in this book have been published in other volumes or have become familiar to the public by other means, but it is the curatorial hand that makes his survey so fine and so immediate, a success not easily accomplished with an artist as private as Hockney: the collection is under the encouraging guidance of the artist. This is an excellent overview of a very special artist whose works continue to capture the imagination of viewers and fellow artists alike. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, April 06



2. Generally the portrait images were too small to really study his painting style. That is my only complaint. Interesting stories in the section describing all his sitters, famous or not. What a productive maniac he has been. 41 portraits of his dogs!!!

4 comments about The California Pop-Up Book.

1. The book looks like it might just be a decorative coffee table item, but the content belies that impression. The pop-ups are fun and attractive, but the real story is in the choice of objects and the writing. The selections speak to the myth of California that was consciously created by early explorers, developers, and movie moguls but became its own reality as people migrated to the state ready to play the roles the myth-makers created for them. In exposing the history through objects and some remarkable writing by such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carolyn See, Graham Nash, Alice Waters, Terry Gilliam, and Richard Rodriguez, the pre-mythic history and the development of a true California culture emerges...one in which the tinsel is a little tarnished around the edges, but glows as brightly as ever with its own special light.



2. As a California historian and author of the book: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MISCELLANY, I found this California pop-up to be a charmingly fun novelty book to share when company comes over.



3. Even with lack of proper stereoscopic vision, due to serious lazy eye, the figures appear vivid and dimensional. The book includes a set of postcards that may be sent to taunt the less fortunate who haven't witnessed the wonders herein.



4. Now I know why I love California so much - this pop-up book tells it all! Well worth the money.

5 comments about David Hockney's Dog Days.

1. I thought it was awesome! A lot of the drawings looked just like my tree red smooths. I was really impressed with how he sees his dachshunds and all of our dachshunds in art. If your not a person who lives and breathes doxies, you may not like it.



2. I love this book!! Having had 2 red smooth dachshunds, these pictures looked like they could have been from my home. All dachshund lovers will truly enjoy looking at this.



3. David Hockney is a great artist and it's touching that he made a whole book about the little dogs that are his friends. But since the whole book is really just two dogs in different poses, don't purchase it unless you're a true dachshund lover. I bought this book as a gift for my relatives who own dachs, and they oohed and ahhed over it.



4. How lovely! An art book about dachshunds! Of course, they are mainly sleeping, dachshunds are too energetic to be captured with a camera, let alone a paintbrush. But the sketches add to the paintings and one can easily recognize the true nature of these dogs: philosophic, intelligent and full of natural authority. Although my favourite picture was a photograph of Hockney and his dogs and the pillow (in most paintings) with Hockney's paintings all around them. The book tells more about us dachshund lovers than the dogs, we are a strange bunch with an odd sense of humour and a deep passion for these dogs. Well, only a person with an odd sense of humour and a lot of patience would love - and manage to live with - a dachshund...

   A perfect gift for dachshund lovers, people interested in dogs or art - or children, who think art is dull and never funny. The paintings are full of love. Thank you, David Hockney : )




5. Hockney's work is simply spectacular here. It's true that "true dachshund lovers" will probably appreciate this work to an extra degree. Hockney renders the dogs in many playful and sleepy poses that are recognizable to dog owners. Some artists have been unsuccessful in transferring the spirit of a dachshund to the page or canvas, but Hockney manages to capture the joy of the small dog and its sad, melancholy face.

5 comments about That's the Way I See It.

1. This is an interesting book because it explains the discovery of ways of seeing, and in the process of explaining alters the way the reader sees art.

   The challenge of pop art or abstract art is that to the uninitiated it seems gimmicky, and one often goes 'you've got to be kidding?' But with this wonderful exploration of the different ways that art and photography are ways of capturing a point of view, not a reproduction of a point of view. And more importantly, how Mr. Hockney comes to these expressions of point of view you get a glimpse of not only an interpretation of art, but the process of art. I love words and the essays are as magnificent as his art in their clarity and honesty. The section on his photo montages are amazing.




2. I have been a fan of David Hockney's for many many years and was delighted to find this book. He writes in an understated, easy way about his art and about modern art in general.

   Two of the sections were particularly interesting: "Art versus the Art World" and "The Power of Art".

   In the book, Hockney explained how places and his personal experiences have influenced his art over the years. He talks about how he is incorporating photography into his work and feels that it is an artist's responsibility to be open to new forms of expression. He says he is an "artist who is always working". I think he is always experimenting too, with different methods of expressing his artistic vision.

   He said he asssumes that if he is interested in painting something, others will be interested as well. I loved this viewpoint....in other words, he creates for himself.

   This was a lovely book---especially all of the GORGEOUS color reproductions which traced the Hockney's evolution and his journeys.




3. Fortunately for us, Chronicle Books continues to grace the art bookstores with superb and affordable monographs on art that make a difference. In this completely enchanting, richly illustrated book David Hockney conducts a conversation with us, the reader, sharing his unique and genteel ideas on how he sees and hence composes the paintings and drawings and photographic montages and sets of operas that have so enriched the art world since he first began his long career.
   
   Hockney's writing style is quietly warm, honest, clever, whimsical and very informed. In this truly magnificent volume he is sharing not only his forays into experimental art (his influences from Picasso, Bacon, and the many MANY illustrious friends who fill his life), he also allows us to understand why he experiments with photography (his explosive yet intimate collages of Polaroid rooms of conversing friends are unique to Hockney), his manner of viewing huge spaces and then parceling them onto paper or canvas in a manner that allows us to see vistas not available to the isolated glance, his still lifes, his sketches and portraits of studio visitors - the volume of work is staggering.
   
   Another fine discussion revolves around is spectacular sets for opera (Tristan und Isolde, Turandot, The Magic Flute, A Rake's Progress, Die Frau Ohne Schatten) - these coming from an artist who is almost completely without hearing making music visual!
   
   For all lovers of Hockney's work as well as for those who want to understand why he so very popular, this is one of the best introductions available about the man and his work! Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, July 06



4. i had read it before and i just had to have it, its an amazing book even if you dont know david hockneys work, the book will make you fall in love with him and his art



5. One of the best David Hockney books.
   A must have if you are interested in his photo montage method aka joiner method.

3 comments about Hockney's Pictures: The Definitive Retrospective.

1. "The Definitive Retrospective" sounds a bit unctuous and presumptuous for a book of selected paintings from an artist's enormous output, but when the artist himself makes the title, we pay attention. This is a splendid picture book with minimal writing and conversation put together by Hockney and Gregory Evans, a book that surveys almost every aspect of this prodigious artist's career. To a point. The book was published in 2004 and Hockney is still painting daily!
   
   As those who are having the complete pleasure of attending the current touring exhibition 'DAVIS HOCKNEY PORTRAITS' currently in Los Angeles, the absence of his 2005 massive output of studio visitor portraits and some of his most current large portraits are missing from this 'definitive retrospective'. But more is the joy, knowing that Hockney continues to invent and pursue ideas and venues that challenge him and result in some of the most exciting work he has made.
   
   But for the reader of this excellent volume there is indeed much to love. Hockney sprinkles the margins of the book with little bits of observation, philosophy and humor. The strong point of the book is the plethora of images very well reproduced on excellent paper. It would be testy to say this is the finest of the many Hockney books available, but at least this one is the painter's stance on the definitive aspect of his career in painting. Welcome to the joy of David Hockney (and buy the Portraits catalogue to embellish this volume!). Highly recommended. Grady Harp, July 06



2. This book is a very complete compendium of David Hockney's output up to 2004. Its main asset is the quality of the illustrations, some of which are accompanied by a short commentary by the artist. Divided into four chapters ( chapter 1, entitled "problems of depiction", deals with the artist's various series on theater stages, water, movement, how to adapt to a moving viewpoint, the problem of styles, etc; chapter 2 entitled "life stilled", dwells on home, life, still life, love; chapter 3 tackles portraits; chapter 4 studies space and light) it has very little text and leaves it to the reader, or rather, to the spectator to interpret all the works (which, in my opinion, is not a bad idea for an art book).
   
   Probably the best available on this major artist.



3. With minimum text, the introduction takes just one page, and the introduction to each of its four sections barley half a page each, `Hockney's Pictures' is aptly titled. The introduction explains the aim of each section: `Problems of Depiction', `Life Stilled', `Portraits' and `Space and Light', and then allows the pictures to provide the answers along with the occasional brief and down to earth comment from Hockney himself alongside the relevant picture.
   
   This is a carefully designed volume; the almost square format comfortably accommodates both landscape and portrait proportions, the images are presented imaginatively on the page with a varied layout which manages to avoid being confusing. Many of the images are full page with some presented as full page bleed and some occasionally crossing the gutter. Each picture is given its title and date; the additional details of size and medium are to be found in a separate list at the back of the book. The book describes itself as having "325 illustrations, 277 in colour"; however this is slightly unfair for as far as I can tell the 48 black and white images comprise pencil or charcoal drawings, etchings and the like which in themselves are monochrome.
   
   This is what an art book should be, full to the brim with images which, along with occasional comment from the artist, are allowed to speak for themselves.

5 comments about Secret Knowledge (New and Expanded Edition): Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters.

1. An excellent read for those interested in the way artworks were produced. The book's inferences humanize Art History and will change the way you look at the works of past masters. Hockney's research is well documented, well presented and profound.



2. I have spent years painting and teaching and drawing the figure. Its amazing how much a person still can learn after practicing it for so long. This is one of the joys of drawing. Every investigated mark is a learning experience. That is what I also love about Hockney. This man might not be the greatest shining star artist of our time, but it would be easy to defend him as the greatest thinker in the arts since Da Vinci.
   
   'Secret Knowledge' is just a small chunk of Hockney's oeuvre. He has been writing books primarily through the interview form for decades. Each book has looked at aspects of art in different lights. This book only happens to be the most concise and stylized of his many efforts.
   
   Basically, if your here reading this, I bet you have some idea what this book is about already. You know that Hockney is putting forth a thesis on how drawings were so precisely crafted by the masters two hundred years ago, while today as one of our societies foremost draftsmen, Hockney cant even come close to matching those abilities. Hockney goes into detail on how he can see characteristic pencil marks created by Warhol or other artists using over-head projectors and Ingres' drawings. This is pretty obvious if you have done both. Hockney then goes into precise detail on the drawbacks of using the camera lucidea and obscuras and how they were used.
   
   I really find some qualms with the reviewer who says that Hockney's arguments are on par with a junior high school students and that they are not scientific. Quite the contrary. Hockney's arguments are precise and unfold in a step by step process. You can't really give scientific proof over how a drawing was created any other way than Hockney has done so. The more time you spend drawing the figure, the more you will realize what Hockney is saying, is right on.
   
   I think that this book will go down as one of the benchmark art books of our era. Its well worth pondering over and I think that even though it does not have quite as much relevance in our post-modern era, it will be around for as long as people still want to understand art.



3. Critics and reviewers who have rated Hockney's Secret Knowledge low seem to me to overlooks some major points. Some of these I find more persuasive than the the issue of alleged perspective misjudgment which seem to attract the greatest heat.
   
   1. H points out that a huge majority of portraits in the period show the model as left handed--some 80%. This is consistent with use of lenses and inconsistent with the frequency of left-handedness in the population. Now, here is a verifiable fact. Are H's numbers right--or are they not?
   
   2. H is not claiming that everyone 1400-1650 was a poor draftsman. At least in what I've seen so far, he doesn't claim e.g. that Rembrandt used optics. Part of his evidence is however that some artists who were great painters were not great draftsmen--their painting exceeds in accuracy their draftsmanship. Now this appears to me again something that is verifiable by a third party. (The question of H's own draftsmanship abilities is totally irrlevant. I don't like his art much myself).
   
   3. In a highly competitive art market, where realism counted, what is the likelihood that artists would >not< use devices that helped them both with accuracy and speed? Even if the great Ren artists could paint and draw realistically without optics (and their education certainly was thorough), throughput and competitive concerns surely would have pushed them in that direction.
   
   4. To my knowledge, no one has responded to H's claim that the change in light to very strong with dark shadows from about 1400 (light is flat) to 1500 is very consistent with use of optics. Yes, that is not the only possible explanation. But from a philosophy of science perspective, this phenomenon and the phenomenon of increased accuracy need to be explained. H at least offers an explanation. The burden of an alternative explanation is on the critics. H's hypothesis could be falsified by showing that in fact strong lighting was used before this period and flat lighting afterwards.
   
   5. Another phenomenon for which H has an explanation but for which I haven't seen alternatives is the fact that in many realistic paintings, depth of field is evident. An example is the famous Vermeer milk pitcher painting. H has an explanation of why the foreground breadbasket is out of focus, while the background basket is (oddly) in focus. If a critic doesn't like H's explanation, he/she should provide an alternative.
   
   6. H shows that in some cases extremely precise scaling is evident--scaling that would be very difficult to do by hand. Prof Falco, the optics and superconducting physicist who collaborated with H., has done the math and claimed that obtaining such accuracy by hand is very difficult since the error is (as I remember) under 2%). Doing anything by hand with under 2% error is quite a feat--including reconciling bank statements :)-- never mind drawing. Here is another phenomenon in which either the factual statements by H and Falco can be easily verified/falsified or need an alternative explanation should be provided.
   
   On an ad hominem note, I think it is worth pointing out that art historians have a built-in motive for rejecting H's hypothesis: They didn't find it! I took an amateur to notice the discrepancies. Finally, personal experience suggests that some people have a lot more difficult time with accuracy/obtaining a likeness than others. For H to be correct, he does not need to support the claim that everyone who was accurate used optics, only that some did and these raised the bar for the art community as a whole.
   
   Thanks for reading.



4. Despite some negative reviews here, I thought this was a good book, and I find Hockney's theory quite credible, due to a study I did some time ago.
   
   Twenty years ago, I wrote what was probably the most detailed analysis of perspective and visual distortions in van Gogh's famous painting, Bedroom at Arles. The research showed that the visual system can create several spatial distortions in a painting if the painter fails to map out a precise perspective. These deviations from geometric perspective--such as exaggerating the perceived sizes of objects in the foreground (to about 20 feet away from the observer), minimizing the sizes of objects in the distance, and the famous overall hyperbolic distortion of the human visual field, were clearly demostrable using standard perspective analysis, especially using the advanced techiques that I learned from Dubery and Willits's fine book on the subject.
   
   I wasn't the first to note them, as these distortions have been noted by many observers and discussed by the great John Ward and Patrick Heelan in their journal articles in The Art Bulletin on the same painting, but no one had done the full quantitative analysis yet or linked them to the visual neurobiology. In addition, van Gogh also showed a spiral or torsional twist in some paintings that suggested something further in the way of physiological optics going on or perhaps even something neurological.
   
   Through close obsevation of the real world, the great artists are aware of many of these problems, and how difficult it is to paint perspective precisely, and ever since my earlier study I've always suspected that Hockney's hypothesis was correct, I just didn't have the data myself, since I was working in a somewhat different field of perceived visual distortions in paintings that result from the operation of the human visual system itself.
   
   So Hockney's thesis seems very plausible to me. I note one very negative review, but based on my own investigations, I think Hockney is probably right. Various geometric drawing devices and optical projective devices were available to the artists of old, and it's very likely that at least some, and perhaps many of them, used them as integral aids in their painting. Furthermore, there is the obvious case of anamorphic art in the Baroque period, where artists were known to have used optical devices to paint pictures that couldn't even be understood without the use of cyclindrical mirrors.
   
   I found Hockney's book well written and a very interesting read. I think he did a great job on it and I learned a lot myself.



5. quality of pictures is good,but words are too much,
   it is different to read,