The Great Bath of Colors

The shock is absolute. We're plunged into a bath of colors, an immersion in the heart of a nature that's by turns wild, domestic, and psychedelic, that evokes joy and enchantment. Not only because they radiate a palette under high tension, but also because they impose themselves as a lesson in life through constant reinvention and a taste for surprise, combining tradition and references to painters such as Van Gogh and Bonnard with new technologies.  

Here we rediscover together emblematic works from the 1950s to the 1970s - from his beginnings in Bradford (Portrait of My Father, 1955), we travel with Hockney from London to California. The swimming pool, an emblematic theme, appears in A Bigger Splash, 1967 and Portrait of An Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972. The double portrait series is represented by two major paintings: Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy, 1970-1971 and Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, 1968.

Soon, however, nature takes center stage, transforming the exhibition into an extraordinary garden. From the gigantic A bigger Grand Canyon (1989) onwards, Hockney explores new landscapes, setting out to conquer a nature that never ceases to amaze. The strength of this exhibition lies in the fact that, through works from the last twenty-five years, it explores all the facets of these naturalist expeditions, from the Yorkshire of childhood (May Blossom on the Roman Road, 2009) to the observation of the rhythm of the seasons, with the work Bigger Trees near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Âge post-Photographique, 2007, exceptionally on loan from the Tate in London. 

While his brushes roam among the trees, Hockney continues to paint his nearest and dearest in acrylic or on IPAD: there are around sixty of these, alongside IPAD portraits of flowers in traditional frames. (25th June 2022, looking at the Flowers (Framed), 2022.). The whole game is here, skillfully orchestrated by an artist attentive to capturing day after day the variations in light, to getting to the heart of the smallest grove. In 2019, the painter settled in Normandy, in the Pays d'Auge. Inspired by the Bayeux tapestry (11th century) as much as by the Impressionist painters, he will create a 90-meter-long fresco using a graphic tablet. Confined during the COVID crisis, Hockney did not return to London until four years later. 

With Hockney, electric blue skies converse with shocking pink hills,  Fra Angelico with Warhol. We are invited to a veritable polychrome feast, where Hockney seems to invite Gauguin and Matisse to share his illuminations. The shock continues at the heart of a monumental room (10) where visitors are invited to an immersive experience: passionate about opera, Hockney has reinterpreted his work for the stage since the 1970s in a polyphonic creation that is both musical and visual, in collaboration with 59 Studio. Nothing is heavy, everything is joy, whether it's a gallery-studio with the allure of a music and dance salon, or a more intimate invitation, with the latest self-portraits. “You have to know how to look, not just see”. That's the lesson. If you've only got one trip to make, don't miss this one. 

David Hockney 25, until August 31, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 16th. Fondationlouisvuitton.fr