Synopses & Reviews
David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most significant artists exploring and pushing the boundaries of figurative art today. Hockney has been engaged with portraiture since his teenage years, when he painted
Portrait of My Father (1955), and his self-portraits and depictions of family, lovers, and friends represent an intimate visual diary of the artist’s life.
This beautifully illustrated book examines Hockney’s portraits in all media—painting, drawing, photography, and prints—and has been produced in close collaboration with the artist. Featured subjects include members of Hockney’s family and private circle, as well as portraits of such artists and cultural figures as Lucian Freud, Francesco Clemente, R. B. Kitaj, Helmet Newton, Lawrence Weschler, and W. H. Auden. The authors reveal how Hockney’s creative development and concerns about representation can be traced through his portrait work: from his battle with naturalism to his experimentation with and later rejection of photography, and from his recent camera lucida drawings to his return to painting from life.
Featuring more than 250 works from the past fifty years, David Hockney Portraits illustrates not only the fascinating range of Hockney’s creative practice but also the unique and cyclical nature of his artistic concerns.
Review
and#8220;A bevy of self-portraits serves as chronological anchor to hundreds of sumptuous reproductions . . . . Recommended.and#8221;and#8212;
Library JournalSynopsis
David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most significant artists exploring and pushing the boundaries of figurative art today. Hockney has been engaged with portraiture since his teenage years, when he painted
Portrait of My Father (1955), and his self-portraits and depictions of family, lovers, and friends represent an intimate visual diary of the artistand#8217;s life.and#160;
This beautifully illustrated book examines Hockneyand#8217;s portraits in all mediaand#151;painting, drawing, photography, and printsand#151;and has been produced in close collaboration with the artist. Featured subjects include members of Hockneyand#8217;s family and private circle, as well as portraits of such artists and cultural figures as Lucian Freud, Francesco Clemente, R. B. Kitaj, Helmet Newton, Lawrence Weschler, and W. H. Auden. The authors reveal how Hockneyand#8217;s creative development and concerns about representation can be traced through his portrait work: from his battle with naturalism to his experimentation with and later rejection of photography, and from his recent camera lucida drawings to his return to painting from life.and#160;
Featuring more than 250 works from the past fifty years, David Hockney Portraits illustrates not only the fascinating range of Hockneyand#8217;s creative practice but also the unique and cyclical nature of his artistic concerns.
Synopsis
'\'Favoring fantastical invention, biting wit, and distorted figuration, with roots in mid-20th-century pop culture, Jim Nutt creates wildly original work ranging from paintings on Plexiglas to phantasmagoric portraits of imaginary women. Nutt (b. 1938) first exerted his artistic influence in the 1960s as a member of Hairy Who, a group of artists who, along with other Chicago artists of the era, are more commonly referred to as the imagists. Since 1990 he has focused exclusively on rendering female heads with radically distorted features in spare line drawings and richly detailed paintings accompanied by customized frames. Working with tiny brushes and thinned acrylic paint, Nutt often spends a year creating a single portrait.
Jim Nutt is the first major publication on the artist in almost two decades, as well as the first to concentrate on Nutt\\\'s portraits. Detailing 70 of the artist\\\'s works from 1966 to the present, this important selected retrospective examines these paintings and drawings through their precedents in Nutt\\\'s work and demonstrates the artist\\\'s consistent and inimitable contributions to the art world. \''
About the Author
Sarah Howgate is Contemporary Curator at the National Portrait Gallery.
Barbara Stern Shapiro is Curator for Special Projects at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Mark Glazebrook is a writer and curator and organized David Hockneyand#8217;s first retrospective in 1970.
Edmund White is professor of the Council of the Humanities and Creative Writing at Princeton University and the award-winning author of many books, including
A Boyand#8217;s Own Story and
Genet: A Biography. Marco Livingstone is an art critic, curator, and author of
Hockneyand#8217;s People.