Ashtray for Museo Tamayo Exhibition, 1984

David Hockney   Master Artists

Born in 1937 in Bradford, David Hockney has established himself as one of the greatest painters of the Twentieth Century and a pioneer of digital art.

In 2025, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris presents David Hockney 25, the most extensive retrospective ever dedicated to the British artist. Running from April 9 to August 31, the exhibition showcases over 400 works spanning seven decades, including iconic pieces like A Bigger Splash and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), as well as recent digital creations and immersive installations. Hockney personally curated the exhibition, offering visitors an unparalleled insight into his evolving artistic journey.

Passionate about the English countryside, David Hockey dedicated his first works to Yorkshire, where he grew up, away from hectic London. In 1960 he joined the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and made a name for himself at an exhibition in London dedicated to young British contemporary artists.

From figurative pop art to new realism, David Hockey does not claim to belong to any movement in particular, and the richness of his range of works confirms his famous statement "I paint what I want, when I want, where I want".

Against the current of contemporary movements, Hockney stands out for his ultramodern techniques and his bright colored palette. His art dealer John Kasmin describes him as an insolent artist, a great observer with incredible technical mastery of space, volume and light, combined with an obvious pleasure for narrative. "Flight Into Italy - Swiss landscape", is the story of a road trip with friends; "A Man Thinking", with clouds of thoughts, the title "We Two Boys Together Clinging" speaks for itself... What characterizes his work is the link between painting and writing and the interplay between color painted with the most diverse techniques and the roughness of the canvas.

From the mid-1960's, his painting became more realistic and proclaimed the pleasure of living, both in homosexual circles and in Californian society. Also, when he moved there in 1978, his friend Warhol encouraged him to make his famous series of swimming pools, "Pools", the most famous of which, "A Bigger Splash" has been shown at the Tate Gallery in London since 1981. Hockney's work immerses us in the Californian atmosphere whose visions we know: clear blue skies, palm trees, modern houses, summer colours and pastel blue pools. 

Hockney also works with Polaroid photography by capturing and assembling different perspectives of a landscapes in order to increase the spatial effect. Loving above all handmade images, Hockey painted some of his shots again, thus creating ambiguity in his photocollages. His first major photocollage project "The Bigger Grand Canyon" was released in 1998 and depicts the immensity of this natural site on 60 different canvases.

From the digitisation of the image to that of photography, David Hockney is a very versatile artist who likes using a variety of artistic supports. He is also one of the first to create paintings on iPads and iPhones and still asserts that he wants to train himself in new artistic techniques.