With clear, vivid prose, this meticulously researched novel draws an intimate, moving portrait of the most famous living English painter.

Born in 1937 in a small town in the north of England, David Hockney had to fight to become an artist. After leaving his home in Bradford 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 decriminalized, 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.

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.

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About the Author: 

Catherine Cusset was born in Paris in 1963. A graduate of the École normale supérieure in Paris and agrégée in Classics, she taught eighteenth-century French literature at Yale from 1991 to 2002. She is the author of thirteen novels, including The Story of Jane and L’autre qu’on adorait (short-listed for the 2016 Prix Goncourt), and has been translated into seventeen languages. Cusset lives in Manhattan with her American husband and daughter.