“The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty: you know you’re an artist.” – David Hockney.
David Hockney’s spectacular ‘sumo-sized’ 500-page visual autobiography, A Bigger Book, has just landed online at OPUMO.
Never before has Hockney’s oeuvre been published in such an immersive, colourful and enchanting scale. The exclusive book takes stock of more than 60 years of work, starting from his teenage days at the Bradford School of Art through to his breakthrough in the swinging 1960’s of London to his recent portraits, iPad drawings and expansive Yorkshire landscapes.
Such was Hockney’s excitement over the project that he made sure he was involved with every stage of its production, from selecting more than 450 works for inclusion to overseeing layouts and colour proofing. “It is an autobiography in pictures, made by a person who loves pictures and makes them,” he said.
What particularly interested Hockney throughout the curation of this book is the fact that there is virtually no text, no expansive essays by art historians or pretentious interpretations. This is a visual survey apart from a single page of 15 sentences handwritten by Hockney, that begins, ‘A Book like this shouldn’t have much text...’ But what the absence of text encourages people to do is to rely on their own eyes, as Hockney believes that ‘pictures should speak for themselves.’
The full 500-page, A Bigger Book, unfurls in an array of blues, pinks, greens and oranges to create a definitive visual insight into the world of Hockney. The extraordinary collectors’ item is limited to 10,000 copies and comes complete with an inkjet print of one of Hockney’s own iPad drawings. At a cost of £1,700, it may not be cheap, but then David Hockney A Bigger Book is not your average art book. It is a limited edition of 10,000, each numbered and signed by the artist, and it represents Hockney’s extraordinary sense of the conditions of the world that surrounds us.
Shop David Hockney: A Bigger Book alongside the entire Mendo Books collection at OPUMO.
