David Hockney

He may have traded Southern California warmth for the gun-metal skies and windy damp of his native England, but this is surely David Hockney's moment in the sun. His compatriots are busy hailing him as undoubtedly Britain's greatest living painter now that his friend Lucian Freud has died. Queen Elizabeth II just appointed him to the Order of Merit, an honor restricted to 24 Britons at any one time for their contributions to the arts and sciences. In the pages of the Guardian — the left-wing paper to which Hockney regularly dashes off harrumphing letters to the editor — a fashion writer felt moved to confess that the artist, a "brilliantly intentional nerd," was "my all-time style hero.

TEHRAN - At the Museum of Contemporary Art here, 19-year-old Aristotle Qajari, whose father named him after the celebrated Greek philosopher and writer, was mesmerized by an art form that is considerably more recent - and completely new to him. "I have not heard about Pop art yet," said Qajari, an architecture student, drawing a sketch of Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's 1961 painting "Roto Broil. " The modern, Western art is a new concept for many here in the Islamic Republic, said the young student, and many Iranians, preoccupied with everyday life, don't have time to think about such issues.

Great Britain's most munificent philanthropist of the moment is artist David Hockney, who landed at the top of the nation's annual Giving List by donating more than twice what he's worth to his own art foundation. Hockney accomplished this miracle by donating art, not money, according to the Giving List , which is compiled by Britain's Charities Aid Foundation in partnership with London's Sunday Times newspaper. Hockney, worth an estimated $55.2 million, transferred paintings valued at $124.2 million to his David Hockney Foundation, and kicked in an additional $1.2 million in cash to help fund the foundation's operations, according to a Sunday Times report this week.

Great Britain's most munificent philanthropist of the moment is artist David Hockney, who landed at the top of the nation's annual Giving List by donating more than twice what he's worth to his own art foundation. Hockney accomplished this miracle by donating art, not money, according to the Giving List , which is compiled by Britain's Charities Aid Foundation in partnership with London's Sunday Times newspaper. Hockney, worth an estimated $55.2 million, transferred paintings valued at $124.2 million to his David Hockney Foundation, and kicked in an additional $1.2 million in cash to help fund the foundation's operations, according to a Sunday Times report this week.

David Hockney A Rake's Progress The Biography, 1937-1975 Christopher Simon Sykes Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: 384 pp., $35 With the deaths last year of Lucian Freud and Richard Hamilton, David Hockney suddenly catapulted into position as England's leading painter. Although the cultivated image of a dandified English schoolboy in white pants, mismatched socks, polka-dot bow tie and beanie is long out of date for an artist who, at 74, is identified with iconic 1960s paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools, the thought is a bit of a shock.

You don't have to know much about David Hockney or watercolor painting to see that the artist's 55 new works at L.A. Louver Gallery are amazing documents of rambling drives through the English countryside. Each casually exquisite picture of leafless trees, golden fields, puddled lanes, blossoming flowers, distant farmhouses, rolling hillsides and quiet towns is an astutely observed moment that would never make it to a postcard but is all the more lovely for being ordinary.

David Hockney may be pretty isolated here in Yorkshire, some four hours by train from London, but that's the way he likes it. Ensconced near the quiet rural landscape he's immortalized in paintings and watercolors, he has more time not only to draw but to experiment with new ways of making art. "We think we're way ahead here," he confides. "We need this little remote place to be observant about the medium. " The art-making medium he's using most often these days is the iPad, brother to the iPhone, which he took up earlier.

A David Hockney paint job on the bottom of the Hollywood Roosevelt's swimming pool has been saved by legislative intervention. The work by the successful British-born artist is a simple one, created in just four hours last year as part of the landmark hotel's renovation, and features a pattern of crescent-like marks that have been variously described as swimming parentheses and giant apostrophes.

Every few months, artist David Hockney slips away from his studio in the Hollywood Hills, passes anonymously through London and visits his aged mother and their family in northern England. This spring is different, for Hockney has come home with big-ticket paintings to show in the country that considers him its most famous living artist. And never mind where he lives. The prodigal's return has caught British fancy. A pity about the critics: They're not applauding. "Home is L.A.

When Cologne's Ludwig Museum approached David Hockney in the mid-'90s about doing a major retrospective of his photography, Hockney immediately agreed. "I assumed it wouldn't take much of my time," he says. He'd obviously forgotten how many photographs there were to choose from. Usually thought of more as a painter, or even a set designer, the British-born L.A. emigre has been taking pictures seriously since the '60s.

David Hockney A Rake's Progress The Biography, 1937-1975 Christopher Simon Sykes Nan A. Talese/Doubleday: 384 pp., $35 With the deaths last year of Lucian Freud and Richard Hamilton, David Hockney suddenly catapulted into position as England's leading painter. Although the cultivated image of a dandified English schoolboy in white pants, mismatched socks, polka-dot bow tie and beanie is long out of date for an artist who, at 74, is identified with iconic 1960s paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools, the thought is a bit of a shock.

He may have traded Southern California warmth for the gun-metal skies and windy damp of his native England, but this is surely David Hockney's moment in the sun. His compatriots are busy hailing him as undoubtedly Britain's greatest living painter now that his friend Lucian Freud has died. Queen Elizabeth II just appointed him to the Order of Merit, an honor restricted to 24 Britons at any one time for their contributions to the arts and sciences. In the pages of the Guardian — the left-wing paper to which Hockney regularly dashes off harrumphing letters to the editor — a fashion writer felt moved to confess that the artist, a "brilliantly intentional nerd," was "my all-time style hero.

Even for legendary decades of change, the 1960s stands out, its impact felt around the world but especially in the Los Angeles art world. The '60s is the point when a number of factors converged that would transform L.A. from just another place that ambitious artists left when they moved to New York into a distinct and thriving art scene in its own right. At midcentury, as World War II was fading from immediate memory, the art associated with that traumatic period, Abstract Expressionism, had become the powerful and entrenched aesthetic.

Rebels in Paradise The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s Hunter Drohojowska-Philp Henry Holt: 288 pp., $27 After decades of neglect, Los Angeles art history is a hot topic. The most immediate reason is "Pacific Standard Time: L.A. Art 1945-1980," an enormous collaborative venture spearheaded by the Getty Foundation and Getty Research Institute. Dozens of exhibitions and related publications exploring the city's rise as an art capital will appear this fall and winter in cultural institutions from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

David Hockney may be pretty isolated here in Yorkshire, some four hours by train from London, but that's the way he likes it. Ensconced near the quiet rural landscape he's immortalized in paintings and watercolors, he has more time not only to draw but to experiment with new ways of making art. "We think we're way ahead here," he confides. "We need this little remote place to be observant about the medium. " The art-making medium he's using most often these days is the iPad, brother to the iPhone, which he took up earlier.

When you get right down to it, the world of opera is a lot like Hollywood. Both professions are filled with big stars with big egos that often clash in colorful ways. And those egos come attached with spin doctors — publicists, agents, personal managers — who are there to make sure that the clashes don't reach the public eye. But sometimes artists spill the beans and word gets out that all is not well behind the scenes. The two lead singers of Los Angeles Opera's "The Ring of the Nibelung" — tenor John Treleaven and soprano Linda Watson — recently spoke to The Times about their problems with director Achim Freyer's avant-garde interpretation, harshly criticizing the production for its lack of dramatic depth.

David Hockney has long been a darling of the media, though factions within the art world have both scoffed and celebrated him. His sheer popularity and facile command of the fame game have made him suspect among art scholars--so much so that one of his biographers posed the question straightaway in his 1981 book on the artist: Is Hockney merely a "colorful personality" or a "committed artist?"

David Hockney, renowned chronicler of Los Angeles' sun-drenched life and landscapes, hasn't been around much lately. He's much more likely to be painting these days in his native Yorkshire than in his adopted Southern California. But unlock the studio door of his secluded Hollywood Hills house and see what you find. Just inside the door stands a row of white, untouched canvases of varying sizes, each on its own easel. Ready on trays nearby are fresh white palettes and neat rows of paints and brushes.

Here's how Lawrence Weschler sees it: "The world as it is," he writes in his 2004 collection of essays and reportage, "Vermeer in Bosnia," "is overdetermined: the web of all those interrelationships is dense to the point of saturation. . . . If I were somehow to be forced to write a fiction about, say, a make-believe Caribbean island, I wouldn't know where to put it, because the Caribbean as it is is already full -- there's no room in it for any fictional islands.