He thinks the prices paid for his works sometimes border on madness. “I want to ignore it, mostly,” he says. “I’ve had sufficient money to do what I liked every day for the last 60 years. Even when I didn’t have much money, I’ve always managed. All I’m interested in is working, really. I’m going to go on working. Artists don’t retire.”
~ Lesley M.M. Blume, The World According to David Hockney (wsj.com, Sept 9, 2019)
Other notables from this essay:
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“I have the vanity of an artist. I want my work to be seen. But I don’t have to be seen.” —David Hockney
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“[The drawings] seem to exist fully formed. It’s like he bleeds them onto the page.” —Arne Glimcher
- The drive up to David Hockney’s Los Angeles home in the Hollywood Hills is a narrow, winding route, full of hairpin turns. At the top of a hill, his compound is fortressed away behind an expanse of fence, hidden within a barely tamed jungle of palm trees and bird of paradise plants. Nearly every surface—the walls, the walkways connecting the buildings, the handrails and the roofs—has been painted brilliant colors: bubblegum pink, cerulean, canary yellow, sea green. ~ Lesley M.M. Blume
Painting above by David Hockney: The Road to York through Sledmere, 1997 – oil on canvas 48×60 in.
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