Martin Gayford

A Yorkshire genius in love with his iPhone

Martin Gayford talks to David Hockney about drawing on his mobile phone, life on the Yorkshire coast, and planning lunch around the blossoming of hawthorn

issue 27 June 2009

‘Who would ever have thought,’ asked David Hockney, ‘that drawing would return via the telephone?’ It is a typical Hockney point, wry, unexpected, connecting high-tech with low — and in this case undeniably true. Lately he has taken to drawing on his iPhone, with results that are luminous, and wonderfully free in draughtsmanship. ‘I must admit,’ he says, ‘that the iPhone technique took me quite a while to develop — I do them mostly with my thumb. But then I realised that it had marvellous advantages. It makes you bold, and I thought that was very good.’

It is characteristic of Hockney to be carried away by enthusiasms and to do the unexpected (the iPhone as a favoured medium for a world-famous artist in his early seventies is certainly that). A remarkable film to be broadcast next week on BBC1 — David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, directed by Bruno Wollheim — follows him over the last three years, as he is carrying out one of the most startling diversions in his long career.

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