David Hockney has died, leaving London with the most visually seductive exhibition installation of the year as his obituary. The British artist, who was 88, had been working until his final months, surrounded by medical apparatus and attending a nurse while still painting and talking about art theory.
At the Serpentine Gallery in London, his exhibition A Year in Normandie displays 130 paintings of views near Hockney’s home in Normandy, executed on an iPad during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. The successive scenes tell a story of the seasons, beginning with snow on bare branches in winter, through to bright blossoms of spring, saturated colours of summer, glowering clouds and rain of autumn, and back to the first snow of winter. The work runs around the wall in a strip so luminous it appears almost neon and three-dimensional.
“David Hockney has died aged 88, leaving a visually seductive iPad painting exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery as his final work.”
Some critics have called it “pretty” and “inane”, comparing it to teenage drawings with felt-tipped pens. But visitors have been captivated. “It’s the usual David Hockney because he always brings joy,” one art lover said. Another beamed: “I’ve been here a couple of times. The first time I left happy, the second time I left very happy.” A third visitor whispered: “It is not breaking any boundaries, but it is giving people what they want.”
Hockney himself said “Love life”, and he brought a brightness to life like no other Briton of his age. He would say that you needed three things for art – the eye, the hand and the heart. Two were not enough. His innate ability to draw, comparable to Rubens or Ingres or Picasso, gave him a head start few could dream of. By dint of ferocious hard work, he built a world of images that changed our perception of landscapes – just as we cannot see French landscapes without being affected by Monet and Cézanne, so California and the Yorkshire wolds are changed in the eyes of the rest of us by Hockney.
His current exhibition at the Serpentine shows the changing year in Normandy in a way that will alter the eyesight of anyone who sees it. Hockney said the display was inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, which he visited every fortnight in his first year in Normandy. The tapestry is due to be exhibited at the British Museum from September. Whether or not that timing influenced his choice of format, the result is a defiant celebration of beauty – the kind of art that, as one visitor said, simply brings joy.