Considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, 88-year-old David Hockney continues to push boundaries and explore the uncharted. His most recent evocations are bright digital works, drawings and landscape studies created on the IPad that he adapted as a tool for art-making early on. Just as one of his largest exhibitions, featuring over 400 works, came to a close at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris on August 31, he readies for another major showcase. London's Serpentine gallery has announced an exhibition of his works at Serpentine North. To take place from March 12 to August 23, 2026, this will feature, among others, the 90-metre-long frieze titled 'A Year in Normandy', showing the change of seasons at the artist’s former studio in Normandy. The work compared to Monet’s Water Lilies, is reportedly inspired by the scenes of the Norman Conquest on the renowned 'Bayeux Tapestry'. It weaves together several images painted by Hockney on the iPad during the Covid years when everyone lived in lockdown. He used the time to paint nature and his observation of its changing seasons on his iPad. "As a highlight of our Spring/Summer season, the exhibition promises to be a landmark cultural moment," noted Bettina Korek, CEO of Serpentine and artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist in a statement. Hockney added that he was excited. The exhibition will also include his celebrated Moon Room, which reflects his interest in the cycle of light and time passing. The note adds, "David Hockney is interested in how art and technology can come together in new ways. Recommending that people slow down and notice the beauty of the world around them, he believes that simple, everyday beauty, like a sunrise, is worth celebrating." Born in 1937 in Bradford, England, Hockney is one of the pioneers of the pop art movement in the '60s. Several of his works have autobiographical elements, referencing his surroundings, friends and sexuality. In 2018, when his 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90.3 million, it then set an auction record for the highest price ever paid for a painting by a living artist.
