Five Of The World’s Top Galleries Present David Hockney: ‘20 Flowers And Some Bigger Pictures’

Five of the world’s leading galleries are coming together to present 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures, an unprecedented international exhibition by David Hockney. The global exhibition will be jointly presented this fall and winter by Annely Juda Fine Art, London (November 3–December 23), Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris (November 3–December 22) GRAY, Chicago (November 4–December 23), L.A. Louver, Los Angeles (November 16–January 7), and Pace, New York (January 12 – February 25).

20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures presents works created by Hockney in 2021, expanding on a series of iPad paintings in 2020 while quarantining at his studio and residence in Normandy, France. Inspired by his daily observations, Hockney devoted himself to the iPad, a medium of unique immediacy that allowed him to be prolific in his depictions of his home, the changing seasons, and surrounding countryside.

Each gallery will present two distinct series of special edition, signed prints from his iPad series: five landscapes, twenty floral still life works, and a composite piece of three iPad paintings, depicting a Gladioli. While Hockney’s flowers capture the fleeting stillness of his subjects, his immersive landscapes establish the vastness of his rural surroundings. Whether bound to a single moment in time or created from multiple planes of vision, Hockney’s distinctive sense of time and space draws from art historical examples ranging from the Bayeux Tapestry and seventeenth-century Chinese scrolls to the still life works of Henri Matisse.

A cornerstone of the series, Hockney’s landscapes call upon his observations of the changing of seasons. In each of his gridded picture planes, Hockney reimagines the Normandy countryside with bright colours, abstracted forms, and impossible angles of otherwise traditional outdoor scenes. Placing his focus on themes of renewal and rebirth, the resulting body of work reflects the pastoral nostalgia and beauty of the natural world.