David Hockney’s Xerox Prints

Erin-Atlanta Argun:

While Hockney is perhaps best known for his larger-than-life swimming pool paintings, bold coloured acrylics are certainly not his only forte. Contrary to the old saying, Hockney is a jack of all trades and a master of all he has worked with: from paint to iPads. In the late 1980s, his fascination with technology and new ways of creating art led him to the Xerox photocopying machine. The copy machine offered Hockney his speediest technique of printing yet, allowing the artist to build layers, textures and colours like never before. However, it was not only a swift and spontaneous way for Hockney to produce his prints. The tech-savvy artist said that he had a more “philosophical” interest in the Xerox machine as a new iteration of the camera.

My post last week arguing that AI is a legitimate tool to create art has, as I expected, generated polarized feedback. One argument several readers have made is that AI generates nothing but plagiarism, copyright infringement, and slop. That’s just not true. If a painter as renowned as David Hockney can use a literal photocopier as an artistic tool, AI can be one too.

★ Monday, 20 October 2025