David Hockney

David Hockney's works have been acquired by virtually every major art institution worldwide, reflecting his unparalleled stature in contemporary art. TheTate in London holds one of the most comprehensive collections of his work, spanning his entire career from early student paintings to recent digital creations. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, visitors can experience his masterful drawings and paintings including important works from his California period. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)maintains an extensive collection that highlights his contributions to printmaking and photography alongside his paintings. Other notable collections include theNational Gallery of Australia, which houses the complete set of his groundbreaking "A Rake's Progress" etchings, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), whose collection reflects his long association with the city, and the Centre Pompidouin Paris. Hockney's works also feature in important private collections including those of Eli Broad, whose Broad Foundation holds several pivotal works, and the UBS Art Collection, which includes significant examples of his photographic works and landscapes.

David Hockney's approach to art-making is characterized by relentless experimentation and technical innovation combined with rigorous traditional skills. Throughout his six-decade career, Hockney has maintained a disciplined studio practice while continuously exploring new media and techniques. Working variously from studios in London, Los Angeles, Yorkshire, and most recently Normandy, Hockney adapts his environment to support his current artistic investigations, whether that requires large wall space for monumental landscapes, darkrooms for photographic experiments, or digital equipment for his iPad drawings.

Hockney's working method typically begins with direct observation, even for his most conceptual works. Drawing has remained foundational to his practice, serving both as preparatory study and finished artwork. He approaches each new series or medium with intense focus, often working in concentrated bursts that produce substantial bodies of work exploring specific ideas or techniques. For his paintings, Hockney typically works with acrylic on canvas, favoring its quick-drying properties that allow him to build complex compositions through layered applications. His characteristic palette of vibrant, unmixed colors creates the luminous quality that has become his signature, particularly in his landscapes and swimming pool scenes.

What distinguishes Hockney's practice is his ongoing dialogue between traditional techniques and technological innovation. His experimentation with photography in the 1980s, producing "joiners" that assembled multiple photographs into cubist-inspired composite images, represented a radical rethinking of photographic representation. Similarly, his embrace of the iPhone and iPad as drawing tools in the 2000s demonstrates his willingness to explore how new technologies can extend artistic possibilities. These digital works maintain the directness and spontaneity of his hand-drawn work while exploiting the unique qualities of the medium, including luminous color and the ability to replay the drawing's creation.

Documentation of David Hockney's vast and diverse body of work has been undertaken through multiple catalogue raisonné projects, reflecting the breadth of his artistic output across different media. The most comprehensive is the multi-volume "David Hockney: A Catalogue Raisonné," published by Thames & Hudson under the direction of art historian Marco Livingstone in collaboration with the David Hockney Foundation. This ongoing project has released several volumes to date, including "Paintings 1960-1968" (2014), "Paintings 1969-1974" (2016), and "Paintings 1977-2012" (2022), with additional volumes covering his works on paper, prints, and digital creations in development.\

The David Hockney Foundation, established in 2012, maintains the most comprehensive archive of Hockney's work. This foundation, with offices in Los Angeles and London, manages the artist's personal archives, including sketchbooks, correspondence, photographic records, and digital files. The foundation supports scholarly research and facilitates loans to exhibitions worldwide while working on digitizing and cataloguing Hockney's complete oeuvre.

David Hockney's contribution to contemporary art is multi-faceted and profound, characterized by both technical innovation and conceptual depth across multiple media. As one of the most influential artists of the past six decades, Hockney has transformed our understanding of pictorial representation while maintaining a distinctive artistic vision that bridges traditional skills and contemporary concerns. His legacy encompasses several key innovations that have expanded the possibilities of visual art.