David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020

David Hockney’s uplifting iPad drawings of the arrival of spring near his house and studio in Normandy, France.

At the beginning of 2020, just as global Covid-19 restrictions were coming into force, the artist David Hockney was at his house, studio and garden in Normandy. From there, he witnessed the arrival of spring, and recorded the blossoming of the surrounding landscape on his iPad, a medium he has been using for over a decade. Working outdoors was an antidote to the anxiety of the moment for Hockney – 'We need art, and I do think it can relieve stress,' he says.
This uplifting publication – produced to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts – includes 116 of his new iPad paintings and shows to full effect Hockney's singular skill in capturing the exuberance of nature.

William Boyd is the author of sixteen novels, among them A Good Man in Africa (1981), An Ice Cream War (1982), Any Human Heart (2002), Restless (2006) and Trio (2020). Edith Devaney is Contemporary Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.