David Hockney. A Bigger Book (showroom Hackett LOSS23)

A Bigger Book, TASCHEN’s SUMO-sized David Hockney monograph, is as spectacular in format as it is in scope. In it, the artist takes stock of more than 60 years of work, from his teenage days at the Bradford School of Art, through his breakthrough in 1960s Swinging London, life by Los Angeles pools in the 1970s, up to his recent extensive series of portraits, iPad drawings, and Yorkshire landscapes.

Never before has Hockney’s oeuvre been published on such an astonishing and immersive scale. As each page unfurls in a blaze of blues, pinks, greens, and oranges, we are spellbound both by the artist’s vibrancy as a colorist and his extraordinary sense of the conditions of the world that surrounds us. Through Hockney’s restless interrogation of perception and representation, we witness the mellow sheen of light on a muddy Yorkshire puddle, the ochre enormities of A Bigger Grand Canyon, the rustic majesty of Bigger Trees near Warter, and, of course, A Bigger Splash, with the exquisite sparkle of a turquoise pool beneath an iridescent California sky. These major paintings are joined by the artist’s drawings, photo-composites, multi-perspective collages, stage designs, multi-camera video works, and iPad drawings, each a panoply of looking and showing in different styles and media.

Hockney himself is present in every aspect of the publication. He collaborated closely through all production stages and conceived of this book as a purely visual survey of more than 450 works prefaced by a handwritten programmatic statement. As an artist who rarely looks back, the vast volume is as much his own personal review as it is a definitive record for art lovers all over the world. “I don’t tend to live in the past,” he comments, “Working on this book, I see quite how much I have done.”

The book’s sumptuous portfolio is supplemented by an illustrated chronology of more than 600 pages, contextualizing Hockney’s art with drawings, graphic work, portrait photos, and text based on the artist’s own writings as well as contemporary reviews. A Bigger Book is presented on a Marc Newson bookstand.