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I was 18 when I first visited London, I'm very provincial like that, but I must confess the moment I got to America I thought: This is the place. It was more open, with 24-hour cities and pubs and restaurants that didn't close.

David Hockney

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David Hockney
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: July 9
Collagist
Draftsperson
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Lithographer
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Scenographer
Sculptor
Bradford
Yorkshire
Place
Hour
Thought
Close
America
Cities
Provincial
Firsts
Open
Pubs
First
Hours
Visited
Must
Moment
Confess
Like
Moments
Restaurants
Didn
London

More quotes by David Hockney

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On the iPhone I tended to draw with my thumb. Whereas the moment I got to the iPad, I found myself using every finger.
David Hockney
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People from the village come up and tease me: 'We hear you've started drawing on your telephone.' And I tell them, 'Well, no, actually, it's just that occasionally I speak on my sketch pad,'
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Laugh a lot. It clears the lungs.
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I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.
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Water colours are wet colours in water.
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I'm not going to stop painting just to take orders.
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I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees, and they seem to float in space in a wonderful way. But the arrival of spring can't be done in one picture.
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In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.
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Of course you can still paint landscape - it's not been worn out.
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Once you start painting, you could of course get lost. I mean you get out of yourself, you don't know whether you're thinking, you just act actually sometimes.
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I've finally figured out what's wrong with photography. It's a one-eyed man looking through a little 'ole. Now, how much reality can there be in that?
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The picture itself is a document. How do you mean? We're looking at a document. It gives you clues.
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The vanishing point leads to the missiles of today, which can take us out of this world. It could be that the west's greatest mistakes were the 'invention' of the external vanishing point and the internal combustion engine.
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In fact, I'm a bit of a slob, but I've always said my excuse, I have a higher sense of order, I can see it where others can't. That's my excuse for slobbery, I must admit, but I think it's a good one.
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As you get older, it gets a bit harder to keep the spontaneity in you, but I work at it.
David Hockney
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Well, in Bradford I could say I was brought up in Bradford and Hollywood.
David Hockney
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The high-definition picture is still a perspective picture. That's the real problem, the perspective picture.
David Hockney
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On the 31st of October 2011 year, I had a mini-stroke. I couldn't finish my sentences. So I went to the doctor. It was a tiny one. The speech came back in a month or so. I did notice I could draw even better, I felt. I was concentrating more. And I wasn't talking much, but I was drawing. I said, Well, I don't have to talk much.
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Before he did all those lovely line drawings, Matisse would make really detailed charcoal drawings and tear them up. He wouldn't leave them about... I understand what he was doing: discovering what's there... to make the line meaningful, to find a linear solution.
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I think I am seeing more clearly now than ever.
David Hockney