There’s a new David Hockney exhibition heading to London

If you found yourself on Pointless - the pinnacle of all British daytime TV, some would say - and were faced with a question about naming a contemporary British artist, we’d bet that about 96 people would name David Hockney.

With a career spanning six decades, it seems Hockney hasn’t heard of putting his feet up, or retirement for that matter. The Serpentine Gallery in London is hosting a new exhibition of his recent works. Landing in the Gallery from 12th March until 23rd August 2026, this exhibition will be the first time some of these works have been shown in the UK. And, just to make it even better, the exhibition will be free to attend.

The exhibition will include Hockney’s recent works: the celebrated Moon Room, which reflects his lifelong interest in the cycle of light and time passing. It will also feature digital paintings from his Sunrise body of work.

A Year in Normandy, a ninety-metre-long frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, showing the change of seasons at the artist’s former studio in Normandy, will also feature in the show.

If you cast your mind back to Spring 2020 (we know, traumatic), whilst most of us were baking banana bread and trying to follow Joe Wicks’ PE lessons (and finding ourselves embarrassingly out of breath), Hockney took to his iPad.

He produced over 100 images on his iPad in just a few weeks, exploring the new medium and capturing the changes in light, weather, and colour across his natural landscape. He captured the scenery over the whole year - even as lockdown lifted, becoming interested in how art and technology could be brought together.

Hockney’s use of new technology is an extension of his interest in different modes of capturing an image. From his Polaroid composites to fax machine drawings and, in recent years, his iPad paintings, he seeks to exploit the potential of each technology in the creation of art. His lifelong fascination with the possibilities of new media was recently given vibrant expression in his multimedia show at Lightroom, first in London and now touring worldwide, which takes audiences on a personal journey through sixty years of Hockney’s life and charts the path of his artistic achievement throughout his career.

Whether you're an art aficionado or just a fan of a nice landscape painting, this exhibition will be a pretty special one worth checking out.

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