\nThis exhibition means an enormous amount because it is the largest exhibition I\u2019ve ever had \u2013 11 rooms in the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Some of the most recent paintings I\u2019m working on now will be included in it, and I think it\u2019s going to be very good.<\/p>\n
David Hockney<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Hockney, alongside his longtime partner and studio manager Jean-Pierre Gon\u00e7alves de Lima, has overseen every detail. This is not a show made about<\/em> Hockney\u2014it is one made with<\/em> him, structured as an unfolding journey through time, place, and memory. His hand is present in the selection, the sequencing, and the spaces themselves, each room a chapter in an ongoing visual autobiography.<\/p>\nThe exhibition opens, fittingly, with early works from the 1950s to the 1970s: a young man discovering his eye in Bradford, experimenting with form in London, and ultimately finding sunlight in California. Paintings such as Portrait of My Father<\/em> (1955), A Bigger Splash<\/em> (1967), and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)<\/em> (1972) remind us how vividly Hockney could capture stillness\u2014and how much he could conceal beneath a surface of calm.<\/p>\nFrom there, the work turns outward. In the 1980s and \u201990s, nature begins to dominate the canvas. A Bigger Grand Canyon<\/em> (1998) is both a celebration of scale and a return to the artist\u2019s deep interest in space and perspective. But it is the past 25 years\u2014the true heart of the exhibition\u2014that reveal Hockney not as an elder statesman, but as an artist in full flight.<\/p>\n\n
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Installation views \u201cDavid Hockney 25\u201d, galerie 4
\u00a9 David Hockney \u00a9 Fondation Louis Vuitton \/ Marc Domage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nIn Yorkshire, he watched hedgerows blossom and fields freeze. May Blossom on the Roman Road<\/em> (2009) captures spring with a kind of unfiltered joy, while Bigger Trees near Warter<\/em> (2007), on loan from the Tate, gathers winter\u2019s hush into a monumental landscape. These works show Hockney rooted in a place, attentive to time, and\u2014despite age\u2014more prolific than ever.<\/p>\nPortraiture remains a constant. In one gallery, nearly 60 likenesses\u2014friends, family, and flowers\u2014line the walls. Some are rendered in acrylic, others in newer mediums, but all maintain the intimacy that has long defined his gaze. In one, dated June 25, 2022, we find him simply \u201cLooking at the Flowers\u201d\u2014a title as unassuming as the work is quietly profound.<\/p>\n
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David Hockney
\u201cPortrait of My Father\u201d 1955
Oil on canvas
50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 Inches)
\u00a9 David Hockney
Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt
The David Hockney Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nNormandy occupies the next level of the exhibition, where the artist\u2019s 2020 series, made day by day across the seasons, is displayed in a newly imagined arrangement. The skies here are alive with motion\u2014brushstrokes that flicker and twist, recalling Van Gogh without imitation. In another gallery, a suite of ink drawings offers a slower rhythm: fields, courtyards, and trees rendered with the care of a chronicler.<\/p>\n
Art history, too, finds a place. On the upper floor, The Great Wall<\/em> (2000) introduces the artist\u2019s lifelong dialogue with the past. Hockney draws freely from the Renaissance, the Flemish masters, and the giants of modernism\u2014C\u00e9zanne, Lorrain, Van Gogh, Picasso\u2014not out of deference, but companionship.<\/p>\nElsewhere, a large hall is transformed into a performance space, nodding to Hockney\u2019s decades of work in opera and stage design. Music and movement spill across the walls, echoing the atmosphere of his own home, where performers are regular guests.<\/p>\n