Once upon a time in 1998, I met David Hockney. We were at a party celebrating his just-released book David Hockney’s Dog Days, a wonderful and whimsical An engaging collection of paintings and drawings by Hockney of his canine companions, dachshunds Stanley and Boodgie.
I introduced myself, handed him my copy of the book an asked him to sign it to my dogs, Doris (a Harlequin Great Dane) and Alma (a beagle mix). He smiled and penned away!
I cherish the book. I cherish the memory.
Daring, vibrant and always authentically himself, Hockney, who recently shattered records for the highest selling piece of art by a living artist at auction for his masterpiece “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)”, sold for $90.3 million, is captured in a compelling new hybrid of novel and biography, Catherine Cusset’s Life of David Hockney (Other Press, $15.99). The book releases May 14.
Through a host of sources, including her personal meeting with Hockney, autobiographies, biographies, interviews, essays, films and articles, Cusset vividly pieces together the puzzle of the revered artist’s life and the enthralling stories that drove the creation of legendary works like “Portrait of an Artist”, painted in a three-month frenzy following a brutal breakup, and “My Parents”.
The book sheds light on the unbreakable spirit at the core of this living legend, who as a homosexual artist in a world where long-standing barriers had yet to be broken down, famously upended the norms of the art world, all through heartbreak and personal tragedy suffered in the wake of the AIDS epidemic. Cusset offers a window into Hockney’s roller coaster love life as he shuttles between London, New York and California, carving out a home in all three locales, whose spirit penetrates and contours his art.
Born in the small town of Bradford in the north of England in 1937, Hockney had to fight to become an artist. After leaving his home for the Royal College of Art in London, his career flourished, his work appearing in galleries and sold alongside his professor’s works while still a student, but he continued to struggle with a sense of not belonging because of his homosexuality, which had yet to be decriminalized, and his inclination for a figurative style of art not sufficiently “contemporary” to be valued.
Trips to New York and California—where he would live for many years and paint his iconic swimming pools—introduced him to new scenes and new loves, beginning a journey that would take him through the fraught years of the AIDS epidemic.
Cusset, author of 13 award-winning, best-selling literary novels translated into 18 languages, skillfully depicts a Hockey driven by impulse to always do and create what resonates most viscerally. In her intimate and lively portrait, Cusset submerges the reader in Hockney’s life with clear and bright prose, offering a lens into an artist of unlimited and unfiltered potential, reflected and represented through his dynamic oeuvre, but also as a human being with a tireless work ethic, caring deeply for his family and friends, stumbling and vulnerable at times and defined also by the turns of adversity and loss.
The book offers a fresh vision of a groundbreaking artist in form and style, a painter, draftsman and set designer whose art is as accessible as it is compelling, and whose passion to create is never deterred by heartbreak, illness or loss.