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I first met David Hockney two decades ago as chronicler of the first cycles of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, the sort of assignment that comes one's way once in a lifetime. Of the candidates put forward to work with David, he selected the German painter Matthias Weischer, and it's safe to say that I learned at least as much from the encounters I witnessed as either of the principals. In the years that followed, I kept in sporadic touch with both as opportunities arose.
Last September, en route to other destinations in Europe, I made an overnight stop in Paris just in time for the last weekend of David Hockney 25 at the Fondation Vuitton. Billed as a survey of the artist's work since Y2K, it in fact covered the full span of his career. Well over 400 works were on display in eleven hangar-size galleries. A slog? Au contraire! I arrived jet-lagged, spent four euphoric hours on my feet, and left impatient for a second round the next morning.
I knew that David had spent the pandemic working in Normandy, where I had hoped to drop in on him on a previous visit to Paris. That hadn't worked out, and this time there was no slack in my schedule. For all I knew, he was still out there in the French countryside. But from a wall label at the show, I learned that he was back in London—my next stop! It had been many years, but I shot him a note, hoping he'd remember and asking if I could stop in for a refresher on "reverse perspective," a pet subject of his.
"Dear Matthew," he wrote back, "Yes, I remember you. Saturday about 5pm would be ok. I have been doing some more reverse perspective picture lately. Love life. David H." On the day, his nephew Richard Hockney answered the doorbell, sounding on the intercom exactly like his uncle, not knowing who I was or that I was expected. A blip.
In his studio, David was resting in an overstuffed recliner, wrapped in a quilt, feet up on a hassock, with a caregiver preparing to massage his legs. Yet as always, his attire was impeccable, and his Pop Art glasses were the same pair I'd noticed in a recent painting in the Vuitton show.
He had made the hop to Paris for the opening and hadn't been back. But he reported how happy the Vuitton équipe had been when his helper Jonathan Wilkinson had arrived to hang the show for its five-month run. David and Jonathan, who was in the studio as we spoke, had orchestrated the whole flow, picture by picture, wall by wall, gallery by gallery. Beaming but also a touch incredulous, David quietly cited record-breaking attendance of over 910,000. The official figure, 916,614, included hordes of day-trippers from the UK, but not enough to clear the magic bar of a million. "We see a lot of Hockney here in London," said another David I know, a connoisseur of discernment. Yes, but not like this.
In his studio, David H was surrounded by new work already scheduled for exhibition in London weeks hence. In the twilight of a career marked by no end of stylistic shifts, the miraculous workhorse had pulled off another. The brushwork was tremulous (hands age), and the finish seemed sketchy. Yet their very frailty touched a chord. As ever, the vision is pure David.
Love life.
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