This spring, David Hockney will unveil a major new work at Turner Contemporary in Margate, UK, as part of the gallery’s 15th-anniversary celebrations. The piece, a massive 22-by-32-foot installation, will transform the museum’s floor-to-ceiling window in the Sunley Gallery overlooking Margate’s beaches and the North Sea.
Running from April 1 to November 1, the window work depicts a sunrise in Normandy, based on an iPad painting Hockney created in 2020. Clarrie Wallis, the director of Turner Contemporary, said in a statement that “illuminated at night, the work becomes a point of light on the seafront.”
Turner Contemporary, which opened in 2011 and welcomed over 322,000 visitors in the 2023-24 year, is inspired by the life and work of JMW Turner. Hockney has said he draws inspiration from the iconic landscape painter; back in 2007, the Bradford-born artist co-curated an exhibition of Turner’s watercolours at Tate Britain.
Hockney fever shows no sign of slowing down in the UK. Next month, London’s Serpentine Galleries opens its first-ever show by the octogenarian artist from March 12 to August 23. The exhibition will feature a new body of work, including five still lifes and five portraits of people close to Hockney, including family members to carers.
Visitors will also get a glimpse of A Year in Normandy (2020–21), a 90-metre-long frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry that tracks the changing seasons at Hockney’s former Normandy studio. The Bayeux Tapestry itself is set to go on display at the British Museum later this year. Earlier this year, Hockney described moving the tapestry to London as “madness,” warning that the “beautiful as well as historically important” piece could be damaged. However, the British Museum’s director Nicholas Cullinan has disputed the claim.
Hockey continues to be a huge draw. His 2017 retrospective at Tate Britain saw over 478,000 visitors, while last year the largest-ever exhibition of his work at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris was also a hit.
