Sprg Cannot be Cancelled by David Hockney and Mart Gayford review | Eveng Standard

Contents:

• SPRG CANNOT BE CANCELLED BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• A HISTORY OF PICTUR BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD REVIEW – CLIVE JAM TAK A MAGIC FLIGHT ON AIR HOCKNEY
• MART GAYFORD ON DAVID HOCKNEY’S REVALIZG LOCKDOWN NORMANDY
• A HISTORY OF PICTUR BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• SPRG CANNOT BE CANCELLED BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD REVIEW
• A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW
• A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

SPRG CANNOT BE CANCELLED BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

“There are more blossoms there, ” he wrote to the art cric Mart Gayford. He lived Paris for a uple of years the mid-70s and, as Gayford pots out, while the new hoe was bought, apparently, on the spur of the moment, “It was surely not entirely chance that an artist long admirg of French patg and the Gallic way of livg, eatg and smokg, wh a French assistant, happened to fd an ial rtg pot jt where and when he did.

Photograph: © David HockneyGayford has been a iend and sort of Boswell to Hockney for a quarter of a century and has wrten two prev books that were both wh and on the artist.

“It’s spectacular, ” he wrote to Gayford. ” Instantly, those early days of the panmic, the work beme a source of hope and solace to a fearful public wh his vivid iPad patgs of landsp and still-lif om his garn, ma as the world locked down around him, appearg on the ont pag of newspapers and on the BBC now Hockney and Gayford’s nversatns had moved to FaceTime, Gayford wh a glass of we Cambridge, Hockney wh a beer Normandy, happily trigued by the weirdly distortg light effects a dodgy wifi signal uld renr on the screen.

A HISTORY OF PICTUR BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD REVIEW – CLIVE JAM TAK A MAGIC FLIGHT ON AIR HOCKNEY

This book is Gayford’s rerd of their exchang placed wh the ntext of a wir appreciatn of Hockney and his work, of art history general and of some pleasgly digrsive mgs on the “new thgs said and done by an old iend, and the thoughts and feelgs they prompted me”. Gayford artfully ploys the notn of perspective, a longstandg artistic preoccupatn for Hockney, as a recurrg motif when examg the men’s relatnship as evolv over time wh their vantage pots equally relibrated by major events – the panmic, Gayford havg a mor heart attack January 2020 which required a stent, as Hockney had 30 years earlier – and by small observatns about garns or sunsets or ra.

Gayford nvcgly nveys Hockney’s growg enthiasm and energy for his task. Hockney’s burst of productivy manifted self a nstant stream of new imag arrivg Gayford’s box ready for distanced scty.

MART GAYFORD ON DAVID HOCKNEY’S REVALIZG LOCKDOWN NORMANDY

Examatns of Hockney’s l ma wh crayons, charal, pencils and the ultra-th marks available via an iPad led Gayford to matns on drawgs by Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

Photograph: Jean-Pierre Gonçalv Lima/© David HockneyGayford is a thoughtfully attentive cric wh a pac ame of reference and his brief excursns to ho art, Hockney’s readg (Flbert, Prot, Julian Barn), his mil tast (Wagner), and that almost five Hockney subject, the pictn of water – scribed by Hockney as always a “nice problem“ for an artist – nsistently illumate both Hockney’s work and the other artists his work brgs to md. (It should be add that the rear n see the prehensive illtratns almost everythg Gayford mentns.

)While Pisso is the artist Hockney most often talks about, Gayford c more often another favoure, Van Gogh, who liked to attach ltle sketch to his letters much like Hockney do wh his emails.

A HISTORY OF PICTUR BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

The unpreposssg flat farmland of Hockney’s Yorkshire and now Normandy would siarly be seen as not obvly ripe lotns for such close spectn, but as Gayford says, the moral is that “ is not the place that is trsilly tertg; is the person lookg at ”. Sad sacks who thk that Brex marks the shrkage of Bra would do better to nsir that, through people like Hockney, Bra has been nquerg the world for years; a new imperialism, and all done by Gayford is Hockney’s partner this magic flight of a book and he do a good job of playg the normal one.

Gayford is the more knowledgeable about the history of patg but Hockney gets beyond scholarly knowledge to the realm of the streamg sparks. It’s a measure of Hockney’s vividns of perceptn that he n always put a p on Gayford’s knowledge.

Sprg Cannot Be Cancelled, a forthg book by the Cambridge-based cric and Hockney rrponnt Mart Gayford (Tham & Hudson, May 11), offers a eper look at the artist’s new Norman phase and his pacy to spire others.

A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

Gayford, who has llaborated wh Hockney on two prev publitns and is among those the artist entsts wh equent e-mail updat on his work, wr this sightful book the form of a dialogue—one that begs person but quickly transns, once the panmic isolat them both, to FaceTime. Gayford took a break om his latt projects, a pendium of Lucian Frd’s early letters and a history of patg Venice, to speak wh Artful’s Edorial Director Karen Rosenberg about keepg up wh the prolific Hockney and learng om his extraordarily rich life lockdown. Mart Gayford: That’s right.

A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

“Hockney is an artist who has changed directn, media and idm repeatedly”• Click here for more readg lists on the world's greatt artists“I’m readg Prot’s Remembrance of Thgs Past aga at the moment, ” says David Hockney a new book of nversatns wh the wrer Mart Gayford. Mart Gayford is a cric and long-time iend of Hockney’s, havg llaborated on several books wh the artist. ”A History of Pictur by David Hockney and Mart Gayford A History of Pictur: From the Cave to the Computer Screen (2016) by David Hockney and Mart Gayford“David’s (and my) pot A History of Pictur is that the problems of pictg a three-dimensnal world two dimensns, as a flat picture, are the same all the way om the ve walls of Lasux to the screen of your smartphone.

SPRG CANNOT BE CANCELLED BY DAVID HOCKNEY AND MART GAYFORD REVIEW

”• Sprg Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney Normandy, Mart Gayford and David Hockney, Tham & Hudson, 280pp, £25 (hb)• Click here for more readg lists on the world's greatt artistsSign up to our monthly Book Club newsletter and follow on social media g #TANbookclub. In an earlier book of nversatns, A Bigger Msage, Mart Gayford served as Hockney’s enabler, a ferential Boswell who prompted the loquac Johnson to makg pronouncements; now the cric and the artist have teamed up to discs the history of picture-makg between the first dbs on ve walls and the latt Photoshopped imag on puter llaboratn is unequal and a ltle uneasy.

It purports to be the transcriptn of talk, but though we do seem to be listeng to the chatty, whimsil, tape-rerd voice of Hockney – who has a tenncy to repeat himself and to rely, as we all do, on vacuo adjectiv such as “terrific” – Gayford’s ntributns are obvly wrten not spoken, weighed down wh dat, quot and scholarly mutiae. Hockney is anecdotal, Gayford more amic. Gayford’s task is to assemble the evince that may or may not back up those cheeky assertns.

A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

The need for biblgraphil back-up sometim turns Gayford to a drearily discursive schoolmaster, as when he rms the dimmer-wted that “John Locke’s An Essay Concerng Human Unrstandg (1690) was one of the fundamental texts of 18th-century thought the Anglo-Saxon world” styl of the llaborators don’t match, and their mds don’t really meet. Their blocks of text alternate rather than tersect: maybe Hockney adjted his hearg aids and tuned Gayford out.

”‘Their mds don’t really meet’: David Hockney and Mart Gayford Los Angel. And when Gayford plac his modish table of the stylists Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell and their preeng t bi van Eyck’s portra of the Arnolfis, Hockney do not pretend to be bashful. Mart Gayford's new book about David Hockney is not jt, as s tle suggts, a rerd of "nversatns".

Gayford do a good job of placg Hockney's current terts a longer reer perspective. The theory is lked effectively to Hockney's e of photographs and digal enlargement for his own patgs, executed his stud wh a team of the whole, Gayford is rmative but not probg. It is about much more than that, but tre are at s massive, strongly beatg, very English heart, and David Hockney's disvery of them is an vatn to all to look better, see better, enjoy betifully illtrated (and very fairly priced) volume tak the form of nversatns wh Hockney's art historian iend Mart Gayford (they are signated on the page as DH and MG).

A BIGGER MSAGE: CONVERSATNS WH DAVID HOCKNEY BY MART GAYFORD – REVIEW

"It's not oil pat, " as he explas to Gayford, but what is ? Early this book, Mart Gayford observ that artists’ liv often don’t make good bgraphy… not very much happens the way of cint.

And so Mart Gayford has done somethg else. As Gayford observ, Hockney valu clary, le, thought and speech. Gayford talks about Hockney turng up the lour dial his works durg his reer; right now, ’s high ’s also tertg is jt how discipled he is, and this has been te his whole life.