David Hockney - Exhibitions

Exhibitions

Hockney had his first one-man show in 1963 at the age of 26, and by 1970 the first of several major retrospectives was organized at Whitechapel Gallery, London, which subsequently traveled to three additional European institutions. In 2004, the artist was included in the cross-generational Whitney Biennial, where his portraits appeared in a gallery with those of a younger artist he had inspired, the painter Elizabeth Peyton.

In October 2006 the National Portrait Gallery in London organized one of the largest ever displays of Hockney's portraiture work, including 150 of his paintings, drawings, prints, sketchbooks and photocollages from over five decades. The collection ranged from his earliest self-portraits to work completed in 2005. Hockney himself assisted in displaying the works, and the exhibition, which ran until January 2007, proved to be one of the most successful in the gallery's history. In 2009, some 100,000 visitors were reported at the Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, to see "David Hockney: Just Nature."

From 21 January 2012 to 9 April 2012, the Royal Academy showed an exhibition of Hockney's work called 'A Bigger Picture'. The exhibition includes over 150 works by the artist, many of which take entire walls in the gallery's brightly lit rooms. A Bigger Picture is dedicated to landscapes, especially trees, including tree tunnels. Works include oil paintings and watercolors inspired by Hockney's native Yorkshire. Around 50 drawings were created on an iPad and then printed on paper for the exhibition. Hockney stated in a 2012 interview "It’s about big things. You can make paintings bigger. We’re also making photographs bigger, videos bigger, all to do with drawing." This exhibition A Bigger Picture is still to be seen in Ludwig Museum in Koeln, Germany, from 27 October 2012 till 3 February 2013.