60 years and running

A Bigger Book

His mother would have "loved the iPad for her crossword", says Hockney, but he uses it to draw.

Commenting on Hockney, Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt fair, says: "David Hockney is one of the most multifaceted artists of the present day.

"His openness to new media and his application of digital techniques, which is frankly genius, have made him into one of the pioneers of contemporary art."

Boos also says Hockney is an ideal representative of the synthesis of the digital and the aesthetic in art, so much so that he was featured in the newly created Arts Plus section of the fair.

Hockney also talks of China's scroll paintings and its strong influence on him.

He was in China for three weeks in 1981－he was little known to Chinese then. His return in April 2015 was a huge hit, attracting thousands of people to his lectures, though some of them didn't get the chance to squeeze into the lecture room but watched him nevertheless on video nearby.

He also drew inspiration from a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) scroll at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in 1983. Hockney says he stayed there for long watching the painting. Later he applied a new method of "perspectives" in his paintings, photo collages and digital drawings.

Speaking about what Hockney means to the Chinese, Leng Lin of Pace Gallery Beijing says: "He is a peer of Andy Warhol and has been famous for six decades. His influence has stayed for the entire 20th century."