Life of David Hockney, Paperback

A compelling hybrid of novel and biography, Life of David Hockney offers an accessible overview of the painter who shook the world of art with a vitality and freedom that neither heartbreak nor illness nor loss could corrode. Born in 1937 in Bradford, David Hockney had to fight to become an artist. After leaving for the Royal College of Art in London, his career flourished, but he continued to struggle with a sense of not belonging, because of his homosexuality, which had yet to be decriminalised, and his inclination for a figurative style of art not sufficiently 'contemporary' to be valued. Trips to New York and California - where he would live for many years and paint his iconic swimming pools - introduced him to new scenes and new loves, beginning a journey that would take him through the fraught years of the AIDS epidemic.