Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy - A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - Hardcover

Gayford, Martin; Hockney, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500094365 ISBN 13: 9780500094365

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2021

Synopsis

David Hockney reflects upon life and art as he experiences lockdown in rural Normandy

About this title

About the Authors

Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo. He is the author of many books, including Man with a Blue Scarf, Rendez-vous with Art, (with Philippe de Montebello), A Bigger Message, Modernists & Mavericks, A History of Pictures (with David Hockney), The Pursuit of Art and Spring Cannot be Cancelled, all published by Thames & Hudson.

David Hockney is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. He has produced work in almost every medium - painting, drawing, stage design, photography and printmaking - and has stretched the boundaries of all of them. Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, Hockney attended art school in London before moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s. There, he painted his famous swimming pool paintings. In a 2011 poll of more than 1,000 British artists, Hockney was voted the most influential British artist of all time. He continues to create and exhibit art.

From the Back Cover

David Hockney reflects upon life and art as he experiences lockdown in rural Normandy in this inspiring book which includes conversations with the artist and his latest artworks. "I intend to carry on with my work, which I now see as very important. We have lost touch with nature rather foolishly as we are a part of it, not outside it." David Hockney On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the change of the seasons; a place to live a life of simple pleasures, undisturbed and undistracted; a place to keep the madness of the world at bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year before, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.
Spring Cannot be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms art's capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and the art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney's new Normandy drawings and paintings alongside works by van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others. We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for sixty years, yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for decades: light, color, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see ... but about how to live.

HOCKNEY IN 2021 : Exhibitions at the Royal Academy London (27 March - 22 August 2021), at the Orangerie in Paris- (Fall 2021) and Musee Granet in Aix-en-Provence (The Tate Collection, From 04 June 2021 to 26 September 2021)...

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500094365
• ISBN 13: 9780500094365
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280