It’s “April in Paris,” sang Count Basie (though Sarah Vaughan’s rendition is a personal favorite), and it’s as good an anthem for the City of Light as any. This year though it feels as though the song could have been written expressly for the artist David Hockney, whose largest show ever is open to the public at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. “Do remember they can’t cancel the spring,” reads the quote mounted to the exterior of the building, just above its entrance. Written during the early days of the pandemic (which started in spring, believe it or not), the quote is representative of the English artist’s famously optimistic outlook, and ineffable energy–even at 87 years old, and with a team tending to his medical needs 24-hours a day.
The show, titled “David Hockney 25,” includes more than 400 works made between 1955 and the present, culled from a range of institutions and private collections. Between the paintings and the drawings, the digital art (referred to largely as the iPad works) and videos, the show is a sweeping, retrospective-like spectacle. One reporter from The Guardian even said it was so moving “I had tears in my eyes.”
David Hockney, A Bigger Splash, 1967. © David Hockney Tate, U.K.
Hockney has that effect on people. If you’ve ever experienced his vivid canvases up close, you’ll have felt their palpable emotional enormity. It’s the subject matter but also the rich opacity of the palette used to describe the complex mundanity of suburban life. It’s also Hockney’s aforementioned buoyancy of character. The artistic director for the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Suzanne Pagé, told the New York Times that while Hockney is a “great thinker” whose contributions to art theory are undeniable, “when he looks at spring, it is like a child discovering it for the first time.” And the current exhibit honors both aspects of the him.
David Hockney, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1968. © David Hockney. Photo Credit: Fabrice Gibert
The show begins, fittingly, at the pond level, as it’s called, where the works Hockney is probably best known for confront visitors: Portrait of My Father, 1955, and those iconic swimming pools, pregnant with meaning; A Bigger Splash, made in 1967, and Portrait of An Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972. Throughout the exhibition, the walls of the Foundation are painted royal blue, red, and grey. The paintings quilt the walls, projections cover the floors, and in some rooms, pillows invite viewers to sit down, and stare up.
David Hockney, Portrait of My Father, 1955. © David Hockney. Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt. The David Hockney Foundation
Hockney, states the LV Foundation, took part in every element of the exhibition, including the “composition of each sequence and the layout of each space.”
“This exhibition means an enormous amount,” Hockney said, “because it is the largest exhibition I’ve ever had–11 rooms in the Fondation Louis Vuitton.”
In conjunction with the exhibit is a book (titled David Hockney), forthcoming in June, that includes the words of experts across the arts and history spectrum offering a portrait of the artist behind the work, “from his early life in Bradford and London through his years in California to his later life in Bridlington, Yorkshire, and Normandy. Several of the chapters are arranged thematically according to artistic subject matter and medium, ranging from still lifes and portraits to his much-loved landscapes and stunning designs for opera. A final chapter explores Hockney’s engagement with new technology, particularly the iPad, demonstrating the endless inventiveness, curiosity, and creativity that have characterized Hockney’s work over the decades.”
In short, it’s the perfect companion to a visit to the Foundation.
David Hockney, Bigger Trees near Warter or ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, 2007.
For information about when to visit, go to the Louis Vuitton Foundation website. The David Hockney 25 show is open through August, 2025.
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