Edith Devaney – författare

At the beginning of 2020, just as global Covid-19 restrictions were coming into force, the artist David Hockney was at his house, studio and garden in Normandy. From there, he witnessed the arrival of spring, and recorded the blossoming of the surrounding landscape on his iPad, a medium he has been using for over a decade. Working outdoors was an antidote to the anxiety of the moment for Hockney – 'We need art, and I do think it can relieve stress,' he says. This uplifting publication – produced to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts – includes 116 of his new iPad paintings and shows to full effect Hockney's singular skill in capturing the exuberance of nature.

American painter Donald Sultan is celebrated for his powerful, architecturally influenced still lifes—striking compositions in which familiar subjects like flowers are transformed through industrial materials such as metal, graphite, wood, and tar.Rising to prominence in the late 1970s as a leading figure in the “New Image” movement, Sultan reimagined the traditional still-life genre by breaking down his subjects into bold, essential forms and constructing paintings from the same materials used to build the spaces they occupy. His signature combinations of enamel, roofing tar, aluminum, linoleum, and spackle, along with processes like gouging, sanding, and buffing, create works that feel at once monumental and meticulously refined. The result is a compelling tension: Sultan’s flowers are instantly recognizable, yet their large-scale silhouettes and heavy, abstracted surfaces challenge the expectation of fragility often associated with botanical imagery. This substantial monograph, the first dedicated to his work in flowers, features 528 richly textured pages, flocking, and a thumb cut index of each flower type, echoing the depth and three-dimensional quality of the artist's signature raised canvases. Showcasing the full range of Sultan’s artistic practice—including his paintings, extensive printmaking, and works on paper—this book presents a vivid survey of his career from the 1970s to today. Featured subjects include poppies, mimosas, tulips, camellias, and lantern flowers, underscoring the evolution of his imagery across decades. New essays explore the artist’s relationship to key influences such as Andy Warhol and Jannis Kounellis, offering fresh insight into the conceptual and material foundations of Sultan’s work. Together, these elements highlight how Sultan continues to push the boundaries of contemporary still life, transforming everyday motifs into powerful, industrially charged icons.

At the beginning of 2020, just as global Covid-19 restrictions were coming into force, the artist David Hockney was at his house, studio and garden in Normandy. From there, he witnessed the arrival of spring, and recorded the blossoming of the surrounding landscape on his iPad, a medium he has been using for over a decade. Working outdoors was an antidote to the anxiety of the moment for Hockney – 'We need art, and I do think it can relieve stress,' he says. This uplifting publication – produced to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts – includes 116 of his new iPad paintings and shows to full effect Hockney's singular skill in capturing the exuberance of nature.Text in French.

Born in 1885 to a working-class family in Connecticut, Milton Avery left school at 16 to work in a factory. Intending to study lettering but soon transferring to painting, he attended evening school for fifteen years before moving to New York in the 1920s to pursue a career as a painter.Although he never identified with a particular movement, Avery was a sociable member of the New York art scene. He became a figure of considerable influence for a younger generation of American artists, including Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman. His talent was praised by Rothko, who said of his work ‘the poetry penetrated every pore of the canvas to the last touch of the brush’.Edith Devaney introduces Avery and his work, while Erin Monroe looks at Avery’s early years in Hartford, and Marla Price examines Matisse’s influence upon his art. A conversation with the artist’s daughter March Avery Cavanaugh and an illustrated chronology by Isabella Boorman complete the book.