Untitled No. 346, from A Bigger Book: Art Edition B

Untitled No. 346 is a digital print on archival paper of an iPad drawing, executed by David Hockney in 2010. Set against a lavender blue background is a vase of fuschia and peach tulips, placed in an ornately detailed white vase. The ‘brush’ marks left by Hockney’s stylus on the screen of his iPad are scratchy, mimicking the pen marks of a rough preparatory sketch. More than a move from traditional painting technique in favor of technological ones, Hockney sees the two methods as complementary to each other as these new tools contribute to the artist’s creative process. Hockney has explored the same themes throughout his decades-long career: landscapes, self-portraits and still-lifes. Yet, Hockney has relentlessly renewed these recurring subject matters in his methods of representation which drove him to adopting digital media, Hockney once joked: “drawing was going out of style actually, it was, [and] I’m amazed that it’s the telephone that can bring back drawing.”