A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts About Painting

Serpentine is honoured to present an exhibition of new and recent works by David Hockney at Serpentine North. The exhibition showcases a series of new paintings for Serpentine alongside the artist's monumental frieze A Year in Normandie (2020-2021), on view in London for the first time. Admission is free to the exhibition which marks the artist's first presentation at Serpentine. The exhibition unveils a new body of work by the celebrated British artist, comprising five still lifes alongside five portraits that depict members of the artist's close circle, including his family and carers. These paintings are united by their frontal composition and by the recurring motif of a gingham tablecloth that provides the setting for each composition. In these new works Hockney combines abstract and figurative modes of representation. For the artist, all figurative painting is inherently abstract, so long as it exists upon a flat surface. Accompanying the exhibition, Serpentine presents a large-scale printed mural by David Hockney in the garden at Serpentine North. The work highlights a scene from A Year in Normandie's spring cycle depicting a tree house. The monumental digital print is displayed at the back of the North Gallery, echoing its creation in David Hockney's own garden in Normandy.