David Hockney: 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures

Five of the world’s leading galleries are coming together to present 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures, an unprecedented international exhibition by David Hockney. The global exhibition will be jointly presented this fall and winter across five cities: Annely Juda Fine Art in London; Galerie Lelong & Co. in Paris; GRAY in Chicago; L.A. Louver in Los Angeles; and Pace in New York.

The exhibition at GRAY Chicago (2044 West Carroll Avenue) will open with a public reception on Friday, November 4, 2022, from 5-7 PM CDT, and be on view November 4 – December 23, 2022.

20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures presents works created by Hockney in 2021, expanding on a series of iPad paintings in 2020 while quarantining at his studio and residence in Normandy, France. Inspired by his daily observations, Hockney devoted himself to the iPad, a medium of unique immediacy that allowed him to be prolific in his depictions of his home, the changing seasons, and surrounding countryside.

Of his iPad paintings, each gallery will present a series of editioned and signed inkjet prints including five landscapes, twenty floral still lifes, and a composite of three iPad paintings depicting a bouquet of gladioli. These works reveal the presence of Hockney’s hand as well as his deliberate technique for drafting larger-than-life compositions on the iPad. While Hockney’s flowers capture the fleeting stillness of his subjects, his immersive landscapes establish the vastness of his rural surroundings. Whether bound to a single moment in time or created from multiple planes of vision, Hockney’s distinctive sense of time and space draws from art historical examples ranging from the Bayeux Tapestry and seventeenth-century Chinese scrolls to the still lifes of Henri Matisse.

At the center of the exhibition, Hockney debuts his latest large-scale photographic drawing, 25th June 2022, Looking at the Flowers (Framed).  “Most people thought the photograph was the ultimate depiction of reality, didn’t they?" says Hockney. "People thought, This is it, this is the end of it. Which it’s not. And I’m very certain it’s not, but not many people think the way I do."

Pictured: David Hockney, "20th March 2021, Flowers, Glass Vase on a Table," iPad painting printed on paper. Edition of 50, 89 x 63.5 cm (35 x 25 Inches) © David Hockney