Depicting more than 6 decades of work – Tate Britain’s David Hockney retrospective has become the galleries most popular ever exhibition with almost 500,000 visitors and forcing the gallery to open until midnight during it’s final weekend.
Full of colourful vibrancy and repeated artistic reinvention this show chimed with me like (sadly soon-to-be-silenced) Big Ben – and my Tate card afforded me 3 visits in all.
Obviously there are some periods from Hockney’s prolific career output that resonated more, with particular highlights the LA pool paintings laced with their pervasive sexual joie de vivre and the large double portraits of various figures from Hockney’s set – but then I knew I liked these going in. Surprises included his polaroid collages including one of his ageing mother whom reappears perennially in Hockney’s work.
Later works like 4 Seasons and even experimentation with ‘painting’ with an iPad are also interesting and a super addition to very varied exhibition.
The exhibition has just ended – but find yourself some Hockney stat.