David Hockney Normandy series For Sale

Octogenarian David Hockney is widely considered the greatest artist of the 20^th and 21^st Century, and with his artistic output spanning over six decades, he has been at the forefront of social change, even now embracing new technology as a way to evolve his visual language.

Many of Hockney’s most famous works – A Bigger Splash, Afternoon Swimming, Lithographic Water Made of Lines (see Andipa viewing rooms) – centre around his move in the mid 60’s to his ‘dreamland’ California, finding freedoms as a young gay man from the constraints of criminalised homosexuality in the UK. Whilst other groundbreaking works revolve around his use of the new Apple Ipad in 2010, the year it was released, to create ‘Ipad paintings’ never attempted by any other contemporary artist: In the Yosemite Suite series, Hockney manages to create multi-dimensional depictions from a flat screen surface of the grandiose, Yosemite National Park. (see Andipa viewing rooms)

Hockney’s latest chapter in his artistic oeuvre – arguably his denouement – is based around his move to the rural, picturesque Beuvron-en-Auge region in Normandy, France, in 2019. Entranced by the visions of sunset over the docks of Le Havre, famously captured by Monet, and by the medieval textile, Bayeux Tapestry, Hockney visited in his wheelchair, the Yorkshire born artist moved full time into Le Grande Cour, a local 17^th century rustic country home: the interiors, gardens, and the playful light of the landscape have become the central motifs of his new artworks. During the anxiety of the Covid lockdown, Hockney returned to his beloved nature, reaching deeper into his devotion to art, ‘we need art and I do think it can relieve stress,’ prevalent across his six decades of work, to create ‘The Arrival of Spring: Normandy, 2020’ charting the joyous change of seasons in 116 Ipad ‘paintings’ printed on paper and Inkjet prints. ‘The Arrival of Spring: Normandy’, the third series which Hockney has devoted to nature, is illustrative of his unique colourist’s eye and his mastery of playful line and form. Normandy has become Hockney’s new muse.

In The Arrival of Spring: Normandy, Hockney depicts transient moments of changing weather, (No.340) his rustic chateau home from all angles (In Front of House looking North, East, South, West, Study of the Entrance), interior motifs (No. Fire, A Bigger Fire) and even the delightful Norman village (Beuvron-en-Auge Panorama). Clearly Hockney’s devotion to his authentic new Normandy surroundings is how he once felt about California when he moved there in the mid-sixties looking for liberation from the post war gloom of Britain.

“I think I’ve found a real paradise; this place is perfect for me right now,” he wrote, enthusing to his friend the art critic Martin Gayford.

The artworks created in a time where the world came to a standstill are like a reflection on life and art as he recently had turned 80 years: Hockney’s ode to the uplifting nature of Spring – see his intense observations of daffodils and pear trees in blossom – is in stark contrast to other pop artists like Warhol, (see Andipa viewing rooms), who captured the emptiness of spring flowers with his paint-by-numbers style of daffodil pictures.

Hockney also creates a discourse between artists and art history traditions in this series: an obvious homage to the still life flowers by Van Gogh. Van Gogh travelled to Arles in search of solace and renewal to be entranced by the peach trees, almond trees and orchard blossoms of the southern France region.

Hockney emulates Van Gogh’s uplifting vision of Springtime and the changing nature around us; the wonder of the natural world and our environs provides comfort in a time of uncertainty. Yet by creating this series, through the Ipad medium, he reinvents the still life genre and depiction of nature in art for a whole new generation and in that way renews its significance.

Hockney says in his newly published tome: ‘Spring cannot be cancelled,’ that
‘We have lost touch with nature, rather foolishly as we are a part of it, not outside it. This will in time be over and then what? What have we learned?... The only real things in life are food and love, in that order, just like [for] our little dog Ruby... and the source of art is love. I love life.'