David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020

Turquoise meets neon green meets violet meets floral white and dove gray - Hockney's color scheme has hardly changed over the decades. The paintings exude something childlike, but they are by no means unreasonable. With his latest series of paintings, which capture the awakening of spring in France, he proves this once again. Set back to the year 2020, one probably remembers only one thing: the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic. Hockney, then 82, set out to travel to Normandy. There, from March to April, he captured on canvas what he could observe: How nature, countering the lockdown-dominated city life, unfolded anew as usual. The Art Institute Chicago will be showing these impressive works in color from August 20 under the programmatic title David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020.

He is thus following in the footsteps of French Impressionism, which is said to have found its origins in the northern French region. Just like Monet, who Hockney noted observed and sketched 40 springs in Normandy's Giverny, he also resorted to the plein air method. What's special about the Spring Awakening paintings is that they were created digitally rather than analog. Hockney »painted« them on the iPad, a medium he has been exploring since 2011 and for which he has an app specially adapted to him. The Arrival of Spring can be seen until January 9, 2023.