The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
All art is contemporary, if it's alive, and if it's not alive, what's the point of it? — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Who's going to ask a painter to see a diploma? They'd say, 'Can I see your paintings?', wouldn't they? — David Hockney Copy Share Image
All painting, no matter what you are painting, is abstract in that it's got to be organized. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I think cubism has not fully been developed. It is treated like a style, pigeonholed and that's it. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I think my father would have liked to have been an artist, actually. But I think he didn't quite have perhaps the… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
With watercolour, you can't cover up the marks. There's the story of the construction of the picture, and then the picture might… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don't draw very well can't do that. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Anyway I feel myself a bit on the edge on the art world, but I don't mind, I'm just pursuing my work… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
In fact, most artists want to make things a bit more difficult for themselves as they go along, to challenge themselves. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I never talk when I'm drawing a person, especially if I'm making line drawings. I prefer there to be no noise at… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
An artist might be attracted to hedonism, but of course an artist is not a hedonist. He's a worker, always. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
In art, new ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling; you can't divorce the two, as, we are now aware, you… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
“Artists, real artists, have to work. They can’t be hedonists. Really good painters are always working. The world is such a marvelous… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Before he did all those lovely line drawings, Matisse would make really detailed charcoal drawings and tear them up. He wouldn't leave… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Perspective is a law of optics... The Chinese did not have a system like it. Indeed, it is said they rejected the… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Everything does come from nature. That's where you get new ideas. Just draw the landscape. I felt doing it with a bit… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...ther e is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering. But I… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Dawn is about luminosity and so is the iPhone... The little drawings of the dawn are done while I'm still in bed...… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
It is difficult to say why I decided I wanted to be an artist. Obviously, I had some facility, more than other… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
What the art historians had forgotten is that in Chinese, Japanese, Persian, and Indian art, they never painted shadows. Why did they… — David Hockney Copy Share Image
Every good artist I know, I always think works hard, we're working all the time. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I mean if you draw you like drawing, it's er, an activity you do all the time actually. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I've always been a looker. Loads of people say, "I never saw that" - but that's what artists do. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
I've never been interested in, much in the politics of the art world, it doesn't interest me. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
There's no need to believe what an artist says. Believe what he does; that's what counts. — David Hockney Copy Share Image
You can't believe any picture nowadays, if it's digital. You can't really believe. If you see me shaking hands with Mr. [Barack] Obama, it… — David Hockney Copy Share
I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees,… — David Hockney Copy Share
I've always said that the only thing a photograph is good at capturing faithfully is another flat surface. — David Hockney Copy Share
I'm rather shocked by what I thought was simple mindedness actually. I thought they're not looking, they're not actually looking. — David Hockney Copy Share
You would think death was an optional extra nowadays. Nobody wants to tick that box. — David Hockney Copy Share
Until I saw my drawings replayed on the iPad, I'd never seen myself draw. Someone watching me would be concentrating on the exact moment,… — David Hockney Copy Share
You always need a bit of low-tech.You always need a pair of scissors, it seems to me. You can do better things… The high-tech,… — David Hockney Copy Share
When you are older, you realise that everything else is just nothing compared to painting and drawing. — David Hockney Copy Share
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… — David Hockney Copy Share
No theoretician, no writer on art, however interesting he or she might be, could be as interesting as Picasso. A good writer on art… — David Hockney Copy Share
How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at… — David Hockney Copy Share
With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times… — David Hockney Copy Share
