Few living artists command the cultural reverence of David Hockney, whose seven-decade career has redefined the boundaries of painting, drawing, and digital art. The Fondation Louis Vuitton dedicates its entire Frank Gehry-designed space to the British maestro in the most comprehensive exhibition of his work to date. Spanning over 400 pieces—from early student sketches to freshly completed canvases—David Hockney, 25 is not just a retrospective but a living dialogue between past and present, tradition and innovation.
Hockney, now 87, has been intimately involved in shaping the exhibition, working with his longtime studio manager Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima and assistant Jonathan Wilkinson to orchestrate each gallery meticulously. The show’s title nods to its central focus: the last 25 years of his practice, a period of relentless experimentation that has seen him embrace the iPad as fervently as the paintbrush. Yet the journey begins much earlier, with formative works like Portrait of My Father (1955), a tender yet assured oil painting from his Bradford youth, and the sun-drenched Californian poolscapes that cemented his fame—A Bigger Splash (1967) and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972) among them.
The heart of the exhibition lies in Hockney’s landscapes, where his obsession with light, perspective, and seasonal transformation unfolds in vibrant bursts of colour. On loan from Tate, the monumental Bigger Trees Near Warter (2007) dominates one gallery with its sprawling, almost cinematic depiction of winter woodland—a testament to his belief that painting can surpass photography in capturing the essence of place.
Later, in Normandy, where Hockney retreated during the pandemic, his iPad became a digital sketchbook, recording the shifting moods of the French countryside. The 220 for 2020 series, displayed in an immersive new installation, reveals his daily ritual of observation, each screen-made stroke pulsating with immediacy. Nearby, acrylic skies in Gallery 6 ripple with Van Gogh-esque energy, while La Grande Cour (2019), a 24-panel ink panorama, nods playfully to the Bayeux Tapestry’s narrative sprawl.
Hockney’s portraits—around 60 are gathered here—are as much about the act of looking as they are about the sitters. Friends, lovers, and himself staring back from canvases and iPad screens, their faces rendered with a deceptive simplicity that belies deep psychological presence. Juxtaposed with his floral “portraits,” these works challenge the hierarchy between subject and background, between the human and the natural.
Upstairs, the exhibition takes a meta turn, with Hockney’s The Great Wall (2000)—a collage of Old Master reproductions—serving as a visual manifesto of his artistic lineage. The ghosts of Fra Angelico, Claude Lorrain, and Picasso seem to whisper from the walls; their influence is palpable in his ongoing dance with art history.
No Hockney exhibition would be complete without his theatrical flair. Gallery 10 transforms into a dynamic opera set, reimagining his designs for The Rake’s Progress and Turandot in collaboration with 59 Studio. Visitors are enveloped in a polyphonic spectacle of light and sound, a reminder of Hockney’s lifelong passion for performance.
The final room strikes a quieter, more introspective note. Recent works inspired by Edvard Munch and William Blake—After Munch: Less is Known than People Think (2023) and After Blake… (2024)—hint at existential musings beneath their bright surfaces. A new self-portrait unveiled for the first time feels like a quiet signature of an extraordinary career.
Curated by Suzanne Pagé, Sir Norman Rosenthal, and François Michaud, David Hockney, 25 is neither valediction nor victory lap. It is, instead, proof of an artist still in motion, still questioning, still delighting in the act of creation. As Hockney himself puts it: “Love life.” This exhibition does just that—with colour, wit, and boundless invention
Accompanying the exhibition is a major catalogue, co-published by Fondation Louis Vuitton and Thames & Hudson, featuring essays by Simon Schama, James Cahill, and others. – PCR
Career Retrospective David Hockney, 25 Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 9 April – 1 September 2025