Where? The Pompidou Centre, Place Georges Pompidou, Paris 4th
When? June 21-October 23 2017
After celebrating his 80th birthday at the Tate Modern and before continuing the party at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, the beloved English artist is coming to the Paris. This marks an important retrospective of his original work, as it is nearly 20 years after his first Paris debut at the Pompidou. David Hockney is renowned for his many styles, explosive colours and large swimming pool canvases.
How do you paint a beautiful Californian pool with its moving summer reflections? As Hockney tell us, there are a number of techniques: using blue acrylic paint and drawing evervescent waves in the water, or white arcs on a turquoise surface to resemble the sparkling sun.
Hockney's realism throughout his younger years, even before he was 20, is a demonstration of his versatility. After realism came expressionism, with half empty canvases and themes of homosexuality; right through to surrealism with Egyptian stylised murals. His exotic use of colours is startling, with his landscapes ranging from the Californian coast and English hills to West American patios - in a swirl of bright emerald green and flourescent pinks. Hockney, inspired by the French artist Matisse who devoted his artistic career to colour, evidently does much of the same.
This exhibition is part of our Summer Art Exibitions feature.