David Hockney (2023)
David Benrimon Fine Art is thrilled to announce our fall exhibition, David Hockney, which will feature a collection of thirty prints that span over the course of the beloved British artist’s exceptional six decade long career. Throughout his life, Hockney has been eager to adapt and engage with new technologies, leading him to experiment with his iPad. The show will feature the artist’s recent iPad prints, as well as a selection of earlier works. Pop artist, painter of modern life, expert of color, explorer of image and observation- David Hockney’s true mastery lies in his relentless delight in experimentation, which is evident in his printmaking process.
“Mediums can turn you on, they can excite you; they always let you do something in a different way”— David Hockney
Hockney’s 20 Flowers series features a unique variety of blooms in vases against a backdrop of gingham tablecloth and burgundy wall. The works were created on his iPad in the early months of 2021 during the artist's quarantine in the French countryside. Hockney produced these works for the German newspaper, Die Welt, and went on to display the twenty floral still lifes at the Matisse Museum in Nice. Later that year, the artist created August 2021, Landscape with Shadows, a large composition of twelve iPad paintings that transports the viewer out of Normandy, and into a bright, abstract landscape of the artist's imagination. What makes this exhibition of works unique, is the diversity displayed in Hockney’s exploration of the printmaking medium. Included in the show are prints from 1986, a time when Hockney became fascinated with the possibilities of a photocopier, as both a camera and a printing press. This experimentation with mark making and vibrant layering of colors would result in a body of work he referred to as “home-made” prints.
Born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1937 and having mastered painting, printmaking and most recently, digital art, the now 86 year old artist David Hockeny has been redefining the Pop art movement for six decades. Perhaps best known for his serial paintings of swimming pools, portraits of friends, and lush landscapes, the artist’s oeuvre ranges from collaged photography and opera posters to Cubist-inspired abstractions and plein-air paintings of the English countryside. A pioneer of the 1960’s British art movement, Hockney is easily one the most celebrated and prolific artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. He moved to California in 1964 and captured his new home in sensual, pastel-hued scenes of uninhibited queer men whose idyllic, sunny backdrops feature swimming pools, palm trees, and light, beautiful homes. Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90 million.
