David Hockney is one of Britain’s most popular and well-respected artists, he was voted Britain’s Most Influential Artist (of all time) in a poll in 2011. Having worked as a painter, draughtsman, printmaker, photographer and designer, Hockney’s versatility has aided his popularity, making his paintings and limited edition prints some of the most sought-after on the art market.
Hockney made his name internationally during the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Hockney has since experimented with a range of styles and techniques. In the 1960s, he created his infamous swimming pool paintings such as A Bigger Splash, while living in California. During the 1970s he designed elaborate stage sets, and in the 1980s he produced photo collages he calls ‘joiners’. Hockney’s determination to broaden his repertoire – through the use of new styles and techniques – continues to this day. Since 2000, Hockney has painted hundreds of portraits, still life and landscapes such as, Winter Timber, on his iPhone and iPad through the app ‘Brushes’.
In 2011, his Fresh-Flowers exhibition opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto featuring more than one hundred of his drawings on twenty-five iPads and twenty iPods; and in 2012 Hockney enjoyed a vast retrospective (David Hockney: A Bigger Picture) at The Royal Academy. For the Vienna State Opera 2012-2013, he designed – on his iPad – a large-scale picture as part of the exhibition series Safety Curtain.
