David Hockney Quotes

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David Hockney

Profession : Artist

Birth : July 9, 1937

I'm a natural sceptic.

David Hockney

California is always in my mind.

David Hockney

It's very British to go about to see something unusual and paint it.

David Hockney

People criticized me for my photography. They said it's not art.

David Hockney

Tragedy is a literary concept.

David Hockney

I'm not antisocial. I like people.

David Hockney

I was aware that the teaching of drawing was being stopped almost 30 years ago. And I always said, 'The teaching of drawing is the teaching of looking.' A lot of people don't look very hard.

David Hockney

I was always struck by how Picasso had no interest in music.

David Hockney

Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

David Hockney

I was 18 when I first visited London, I'm very provincial like that, but I must confess the moment I got to America I thought: This is the place. It was more open, with 24-hour cities and pubs and restaurants that didn't close.

David Hockney

Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft.

David Hockney

I go and see anything that's visually new, any technology that's about picture-making. The technology won't make the pictures different, but someone using it will.

David Hockney

Yes, I did, I mean I painted er, in a kind of abstract expressionist way, because of course that was exciting.

David Hockney

We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way.

David Hockney

Spring is very energising to me.

David Hockney

I'm not going to stop painting just to take orders.

David Hockney

West Yorkshire is quite dramatic and beautiful, the crags and things.

David Hockney

But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't.

David Hockney

But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years.

David Hockney

I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century.

David Hockney