Still a Force at 87, David Hockney Steals the Spotlight in Paris

At 87, David Hockney is not merely still working—he’s blazing full steam ahead. The largest exhibition ever dedicated to the beloved British painter has just opened at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, tracing his astonishing 70-year career across more than 400 works. While the retrospective spans Hockney’s evolution from art student in 1955 to global art-world luminary, it’s his recent output—created in the face of illness, isolation, and the introspection of late life—that may catch viewers most off guard.

“Some of my most recent paintings are included, and I do think it is a very enjoyable and visually interesting survey of works,” Hockney said in a statement. “Not many artists have been drawing similar themes and the same people for more than 60 years.”

Long hailed as one of the greatest—and most expensive—living artists, Hockney continues to defy expectations. Despite a period of fragile health requiring round-the-clock care, he remains doggedly prolific—often working six hours a day. That irrepressible spirit, along with the wit and warmth that have always defined his work, pulses through new pieces like (2025), a droll and poignant self-portrait showing the artist in his signature yellow glasses, checkered suit, and yes, a cigarette firmly in hand.

Other recent highlights include mischievous reinterpretations of his artistic heroes—William Blake and Edvard Munch among them. In (2024), Hockney responds to Blake’s with a contemporary twist, part homage and part philosophical riff on art’s mysteries. Elsewhere, the exhibition elucidates Hockney’s dialogue with artists like Fra Angelico, Cezanne, and Van Gogh.

“What I am trying to do is to bring people closer to something,” Hockney reflected. “You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.”

Hockney and his partner Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima have been personally involved in organizing “David Hockney 25,” so named for its focus on the artist’s output during the first half of the 21st century. Under their guidance, the suite of works in each of the foundation’s 11 galleries have been arranged to show to their best advantage works or series of an impressive but often challenging scale.

Here are eight career-spanning works by the artist that showcase his endlessly regenerative, innovative approach to recurrent themes.

An Artist Finds His Muse

Hockney was born in the small city of Bradford, Yorkshire in the north of England in 1937. When he was still in his late teens, he made a tender portrait of his father seated and dressed smartly. In somber tones, Kenneth Hockney, an accounts clerk, appears almost timid, with his hands in his lap and his gaze downcast. The portrait was shown at the Leeds Art Gallery in 1957 and is the earliest work included in this survey. The work betrays an understated simplicity, especially in its palette, that would continue to be a hallmark of much later portraits.

Hockney is best known for elegant figurative work, even at a time when the art world showed much greater interest in the revelations of abstraction, but he was certainly open to a wide set of influences. This candid 1960 work appears to show to show the boxy, cartoonish silhouettes of two male figures with phallic protrusions locked in a “69” pose. The number 48 is a code representing Hockney’s initials D.H. and 23.23 represents W.W., presumably a reference to the American poet Walt Whitman, whose homoerotic verse Hockney had been reading.

California Cool

One of Hockney’s most famous motifs is the swimming pool, through which he captures the free-spirited hedonism of Los Angeles, where he moved in 1964. Though the splash of water in front of a diving board is evocative of true-to-life spontaneity, the idea for the iconic (1967) actually came from seeing an ad in a magazine. The disruption at the surface of an otherwise perfectly still composition excites the eye and the mystery of the absent figure has generally been read as erotic.

Among Hockney’s most celebrated works are his double portraits, including this largely imagined scene containing the artist’s friends Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark. The two fashion designers were married at the time and an ease and affection thrums through a scene that evokes a carefree day in the sun. However, each protagonist is also noticeably self-conscious as they pose on either side of a balcony that draws our eye beyond. It is thought that the painting was intended as a belated wedding present. The marriage ended in 1974.

Lush Landscapes

A far cry from the rugged Yorkshire Dales near where Hockney grew up, the majestic Grand Canyon made a big impression on the artist. To capture a sense of its considerable, even sublime, scale, he painted it over 60 canvases tiled together in a long sweeping vista. Though the size is unconventional, it speaks to Hockney’s desire to capture the scenery not as it is but as it feels to inhabit. As usual, the art does not shy from greatly amplifying naturally occurring color schemes.

Hockney moved back to his native Yorkshire in the late 1990s, and embraced the remarkable shift in topography with charming paintings of classically English green rolling fields. One aspect of the countryside he particularly enjoyed that had been absent in California was the changing seasons, which he tackled by painting with inspiration from landscape painters like John Constable. This scene is one of 36 watercolors from “Midsummer: East Yorkshire,” a series produced with the help of Hockney’s then studio assistant Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, who is now his partner.

Technicolor and Technology 

Over the years Hockney has remained in demand as a painter of notable figures and this portrait of his friend Frank Gehry is a fitting tribute to the architect responsible for the Fondation Louis Vuitton building in Paris. Other subjects on view include the late artist John Baldessari and Harry Styles.

In the final decades of his life, Hockney has continued to surprise his admirers with his embrace of new technologies, including those everyday items like iPads that few artists would consider fit for making a masterpiece. These digital compositions became a source of solace during the pandemic of 2020, when Hockney was stranded in the Normandy village where he had bought a house. He made 220 views for his “220 for 2020” series, a celebration of spring during a very uncertain time. These were strung together into a continuous 314-feet frieze at the Salts Mill in his native city of Bradford in 2022.

Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com