Each of the 120 pictures in the book, all created between 2009 and 2012 and arranged by Hockney himself in chronological order, portrays the view of and from the artist’s window, depicting artefacts on the internal windowsill and the vista beyond.
When Yorkshire-born Hockney first started using the then-revolutionary iPhone as an artistic medium in the late 2000s, he opened up new artistic possibilities. In 2010, he discovered the iPad which, with its larger screen and integral Brushes app, gave him even more freedom, both artistically and practically.
"It can be anything you want it to be,” he said to the London Evening Standard. “This is the nearest we have got to seeing what I would call a universal machine."
He began work on a set of very personal images inspired by the view of and from his window. These have now been collected in a superb new book, My Window.
The new ‘baby sumo’ volume is published by art specialists TASCHEN, whose previous book with Hockney, the spectacular A Bigger Book, was a huge success, selling out around the country, including at the Artmarket Gallery.
Each image within it captures a specific moment in time, from daybreak to sunset, moving from season to season, a particular interest of Hockney’s.
This large-format, brilliant resolution, artist’s book comes in four Art Editions, each with a print of an iPhone drawing. The second 250 – Art Edition B – are accompanied by drawing No. 281, an intimate insight into Hockney’s day on 23 July 2010. A single vibrant red flower stands in a Moroccan-style blue vase against green shutters – perhaps he was on holiday somewhere hot and by the sea?
Both the book and the print are personally signed by David Hockney.
There are three further Art Editions with different prints, and also a signed Collector’s Edition (numbers 1,001 to 2,000).