David Hockney, a High-Tech Artist


03/04/2022

The success of this printed landscape created on a tablet computer by the British artist, now living in Normandy, attests to changing artistic mentalities.



by Sophie Reyssat

David Hockney (b. 1937), The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) – 12 April, no. 2, 2011, drawing on iPad, digital print on paper, signed and dated, justified 13/25, 140 x 105 cm/55.12 x 41.34 in. Result: €125,708
As the "David Hockney, A Year in Normandy" exhibition at the musée de l'Orangerie in Paris  closes, this springtime work is a perfect illustration of the artist's interest not only in landscapes, his main source of inspiration in recent years, but also in new technology. This print on paper reproduces a drawing made on an iPad. Hockney, a staunch defender of figurative art, is interested in technological innovations, which he has used in his work since the 1980s. Here, he found a new way of painting the world: from the motif, but with the pop colors of digital technology. As NFTs make headlines and change ideas about the very notion of art, collectors’ interest in this drawing on a tablet was obvious. It sparked a fierce bidding war, in which most of the competitors were from English-speaking countries. Sold by court order, the work fetched €125,708, triple its value at the time it was created slightly over 10 years ago. Click here to read more!