David Hockney is one of the most recognisable British artists of the past century: painter of swimming pools and Yorkshire landscapes, chronicler of friendship and desire, pioneer of digital art, and one of the few artists whose work continued to evolve throughout his career. Yet Hockney's life can also be understood through the places that shaped him.
In David Hockney: An Artist for Life, Paul Morley tells Hockney's story through a series of locations that transformed the way he saw the world. This is not a conventional biography or a guided tour through famous paintings. Instead, it explores how geography, culture and personal experience combined to shape one of Britain's greatest modern artists. The swimming pools of California, the landscapes of Yorkshire, the light of southern France and the changing seasons of Normandy become part of a larger story about creativity, freedom, identity and lifelong curiosity.
Along the way, Morley traces Hockney's rise from working-class Bradford to international fame. He examines the friendships, artistic influences and moments of personal transformation that defined each stage of Hockney's career, showing how he repeatedly renewed both his art and his public image while remaining unmistakably himself.
Rich in cultural history and written with Morley's distinctive insight and accessibility, David Hockney: An Artist for Life offers a fresh perspective on a beloved national figure. It is a portrait not only of an extraordinary artist, but of post-war Britain, changing attitudes towards art and sexuality, and the enduring power of place to shape how we see the world.