David Hockney: Normandy Portraits

David Hockney: Normandy Portraits accompanies a major exhibition on David Hockney at the National Portrait Gallery, London. It reveals new portraits painted in Hockney’s Normandy Studio between 2020 and 2022.

David Hockney: Normandy Portraits illustrates around 40 acrylic on canvas works painted by Hockney at his Normandy studio – depicting his friends and visitors, including his partner JP, pop-star sensation Harry Styles, and the artist himself. This image-led book product will showcase a series of some previously unseen portraits, through 48 pages, uninterrupted by text, to allow readers to engage directly with the artworks that will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery as well as some added exclusives.

These works highlight the ongoing importance of portraiture within the artist’s practice and demonstrate his sentiment that ‘drawings and paintings … are a lot better than photographs to give you a sense of the person’. Hockney returned to painting after an intensive period spent depicting the Normandy landscape using an iPad. The portraits were painted quickly and directly onto the canvas without under drawing. As Hockney has said ‘to do a portrait slowly is a bit of a contradiction’.