82 retratos y 1 bodegón

This volume presents the superb group of 82 retratos y 1 bodegón recently created by the acclaimed British painter David Hockney, which is currently being exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
With this series, Hockney takes a stand for the pictorial genre of portraiture, which he has been cultivating for over six decades. He considers painting as a medium that can condense time in an artistic piece and hence, reflect the richness in each face and figure.
All the paintings have the same format and neutral background, with a white, upholstered chair placed on a platform. The artist dedicated an average of three days to painting each of the portraits, in sessions of up to seven hours a day. Some of the people portrayed have corroborated the intensity of the process, which takes place in complete silence, by going as far as to say that the artist’s gaze is so penetrating it reaches the center of one’s soul.