‘This exhibition is particularly important to me because it’s the biggest I’ve ever had – the eleven galleries of the Fondation Louis Vuitton! Some of my very latest paintings, which I’m currently working on, will be on show there. It’s going to be good, I think’.

– David Hockney

The Exhibition
David Hockney 25

The exhibition ‘David Hockney 25’ offers a comprehensive insight into the British artist’s work spanning over seven decades. More than 400 works from the years 1955 to 2025 are on display – including oil and acrylic paintings, drawings in ink, pencil or charcoal, as well as digital works created with an iPhone, iPad or on a computer. Video installations are also part of the show.

Hockney himself was closely involved in the conception of the exhibition. Together with his assistant, he developed the design of the rooms and the sequence of works. Particularly noteworthy is his desire to begin the presentation with his most recent works in order to give visitors a fresh approach to his work.

The exhibition makes it clear how open Hockney always was to new media and forms of expression. From a classical draughtsman and painter, he has developed into a pioneer of digital art – without losing his personal signature. His creative curiosity and constant desire for renewal run like a red thread through his entire oeuvre.

The tour

On the ground floor, you will first find highly symbolic works from the 1950s to the 1970s – from his beginnings in Bradford (‘Portrait of My Father’, 1955), then in London and finally in California. The pool appears as an emblematic theme in ‘A Bigger Splash’, 1967, and ‘Portrait of An Artist (Pool with Two Figures)’, 1972. His series of double portraits is represented by two important paintings: Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1970-1971, and Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1968.

In the 1980s and 1990s, nature became increasingly important in David Hockney’s work. After returning to England from the USA, he focussed on the landscapes of Yorkshire, where he spent his childhood. Here, Yorkshire is celebrated as the artist turns a hawthorn bush into a spectacular explosion of spring (‘May Blossom on the Roman Road’, 2009).

His observation of the seasons leads him to a monumental winter landscape painted on the motif, exceptionally on loan from the Tate in London: ‘Bigger Trees near Warter or/or Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Âge Post-Photographique’, 2007.

Hockney’s portraits of family and friends are another major theme. Initially he used acrylic paint and canvas, then his iPad. The exhibition includes around 60 of these pictures in Gallery 4. The iPAd pictures are also inserted into traditional frames… Can you tell the difference?

The entire first floor – galleries 5 to 7 – is then dedicated to the landscapes of Normandy. In Gallery 5 you will find a series that was only executed on the iPad. In Gallery 6 you will again find acrylic paintings that are remotely reminiscent of Van Gogh – with idiosyncratic, vibrating brushstrokes that depict the sky. Gallery 7 features a panorama of twenty-four ink drawings (‘La Grande Cour’, 2019) reminiscent of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The tour on the top floor of the exhibition begins with reproductions of important works of art dating back to the 15th century. They show which artists have particularly inspired David Hockney – from Fra Angelico to Claude Lorrain, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Picasso. His painting is in a lively dialogue with European art history. The second part of the room is designed like a studio, which Hockney transforms into a meeting place – with music and dance, just as he regularly does in his own home.

The exhibition then closes with a very intimate room in which Hockney’s most recent works from London are shown. In this Gallery 11 you will find particularly enigmatic works that are inspired by Edvard Munch, among others: ‘After Munch: Less is Known than People Think’, 2023. In these works we find aspects of astronomy, history and geography and encounter a form of spirituality, as the artist himself puts it.