Hockney to show his life’s work
IN a career spanning six decades, David Hockney’s vibrant images have made him one of the most successful artists of our time.
Now Tate Britain is to host the world’s most extensive retrospective of his work.
The exhibition, which opens in February next year, will give an ‘unprecedented overview’ of the artist’s achievements in painting, drawing, print, photography and video.
It will be one of the biggest shows organised by the Tate and will feature images from the Yorkshire landscapes that caught the imagination of the Bradford-born artist as a teen- ager to his famous pictures of swimming pools in Los Angeles. It will also show unfinished works and new pieces that have never been on display.
Hockney, 78, is famed for embracing change and new technologies – including his landscapes painted on an iPad. The Tate’s chronological overview of his compositions will aim to show ‘how the roots of each new direction lay in the work that came before’.
Included in the works to be shown are Hockney’s Love paintings from the 1960s, which explored his homosexuality, and portraits of family, friends and himself. ‘It has been a pleasure to revisit works I made decades ago, including some of my earliest paintings,’ said Hockney. ‘Many of them seem like old friends to me now.’
Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain, said: ‘Hockney’s impact on post-war art, and culture more generally, is inestimable, and this is a fantastic opportunity to see the full trajectory of his career.’
The Tate exhibition runs from February 9 to May 29, 2017, before being transferred to Paris and then New York.