David Hockney In Paris: The Largest, Most Joyful Exhibit Worth The Trip

Forbes

15-04-2025

David Hockney, Untitled, 22 July 2005. Oil on canvas.
'David Hockney 25,' the just-opened exhibit at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, is the largest to date of the British artist featuring more than 400 works, including some never seen before.
A once-in-a-lifetime experience that certainly merits the trip to Paris and already numbered among the blockbuster exhibitions of the year, it is also a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Fondation Louis Vuitton and will be open until August 31.
Opened at its entrance by an appropriately hopeful slogan in pink neon in these times of turmoil and uncertainty — 'Do remember they can't cancel spring' — the Hockney exhibition is an experience that connects visitors with the world through an array of joyful, colorful, inspiring paintings, i-pad drawings and sometimes spectacular videos.
A Year in Normandy, chair, David Hockney, 2020
'Inside and outside the soaring spaces of the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, everything is in bloom, a joyful vision and a record of a life in art lived with passionate curiosity, attention to the human condition and reverence for the natural world,' the New York Times enthuses in a review.
It's the most extensive retrospective ever dedicated to the 87-year-old painter, featuring works from 1955 to 2025 and that, despite its sheer amount, as Le Monde's critic writes that 'you find yourself thinking it's not enough.'
The Guardian's critic found the the show 'so moving, I had tears in my eyes.'
David Hockney, Play Within a Play Within a Play and Me with a Cigarette, 2025. Acrylic on canvas with collage.
This exceptional exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal, former director of the Royal Academy in London, has been organized according to the artist's choices and instructions, and in addition to a major collection from his studio and his foundation assembles loans from international, institutional, and private collections.
It includes works created using a wide, delightful and often astonishing variety of techniques — oil and acrylic paintings, ink, pencil, and charcoal drawings — as well as digital works across photographic, computer, iPhone, and iPad devices — and immersive photo and video installations.
Apple Tree 2019. Acrylic on canvas.
David Hockney, 27th March 2020
'He himself chose, after presenting some of his legendary early work, to open the exhibition with the last 25 years' production, thus offering an immersion in his world, spanning seven decades of creation,' the Louis Vuitton museum explains. 'He wanted to personally follow the design of each sequence and each room.'
As described by Le Figaro: 'This painter, so English down to his bold pate and colorful attire, navigates with a touch of impatience in his 'electric chair,' gazing longingly at the hanging of this dazzling exhibition. His two nurses bring him his coke, but he lights his beloved cigarettes alone, with the same dandyish gesture he's always had. Vitality lurks like a volcano not yet extinguished.'
At the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris' Bois de Boulogne, the explosion of colorful, relatable, joyful and immersive works illuminate the 12 rooms dedicated to the show, communicating the artist's joie de vivre and bringing smiles of delight - and sometimes even gasps - to observers.
It's the satisfaction of remembering that nature offers infinite inspiration, if one simply looks.
David Hockney: A room of portraits in many different styles, welcomes visitors.
David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020
"David Hockney 25" shows the constant renewal of the artist's subjects and modes of expression and his exceptional ability to reinvent his art. Initially a draftsman, then a master of all academic techniques, he is today a champion of new technologies.
Born in 1937 in Bradford, an industrial town in northern England, Hockney started painting at a young age, his creative universe spanning seven decades that make him one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
As a preamble, the exhibit starts with emblematic works such as the Portrait of An Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972, and his series of double and single portraits.
Then, nature assumes an increasingly important place in Hockney's work from the 1980s to the 1990s before his return to Europe. The core of the exhibition concentrates on the past 25 years, spent mainly in Yorkshire, Normandy and London, a celebration of the landscape, the spectacular explosion of spring and the changing seasons to culminate with the winter landscape Bigger Trees near Water or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, 2007, loaned by London's Tate Museum.
David Hockney, Bigger Trees near Warter, 2007.'
Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972. Acrylic on canvas.
During the same period, David Hockney painted friends and relatives in acrylic or on iPad while also working on self-portraits. The exhibition features some 60 portraits shown alongside his 'portraits of flowers.' Created on a digital tablet but displayed in traditional frames, the works have an intriguing effect. This is evident in Looking at the Flowers (Framed), 2022, where they are shown together on the wall.
David Hockney, 25th June 2022, Looking at the Flowers. Photographic drawing printed on paper
Seeing them in that painting and then recognizing them hung around the room radiates joy to visitors of all ages. Hockney is a reliable 'porteur de bonheur ' with his blossoming trees, multicolored flowers and vibrant landscapes.
'You can learn a lot in this exhibition – not just about photography and the human eye but art history and perspective' writes the Guardian's reviewer. 'He show us how beautiful the world is in spite of those who try so hard to ruin it.'
David Hockney, 24th February 2021, Red, Yellow and Purple Flowers on a Blue Tablecloth. iPad painting printed on paper, mounted on aluminium
David Hockney, 30 Sunflowers, 1996. Oil on canvas.
'Day after day, season after season, the artist captures the light variations,' the curators explain. 'A series of acrylic paintings is on display featuring a highly singular treatment of the sky, animated by vibrant touches, that subtly evoke the work of Van Gogh.'
The final room on the top floor feels more emotional in its joyful cornucopia of color. It unveils David Hockney's most recent works, painted in London, where he has lived since July, 2023. These enigmatic paintings are inspired by Edvard Munch and William Blake: After Munch: Less is Known than People Think, 2023, and After Blake: Less is Known than People Think, 2024, in which astronomy, history and geography cross paths with spirituality, according to the artist.
Here, also, appears 'Play Within a Play Within a Play and Me With a Cigarette' (2025) , his latest self-portrait in his London garden painting the same image we see, as the daffodils around him announce spring.
David Hockney: After Blake: Less is Known than People Think, 2024
Giverny by DH, 2023. Acrylic on Canvas.
Nearing the end, new works are placed that engage the spectator in a video at the artist's studio, transformed into a dance hall where musicians and dancers are regularly invited to perform.
Passionate about opera, Hockney also reinterprets the set designs he has been creating since the 1970s in a spectacular new multimedia, polyphonic creation where visitors are immersed in a musical and visual piece.
David Hockney 25 is at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, until August 31. Tickets are available here.