THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'A burst of springtime joy' Daily Telegraph
'A springboard for ideas about art, space, time and light' The Times
'Lavishly illustrated' Guardian
David Hockney reflects upon life and art as he experiences lockdown in rural Normandy
On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the change of the seasons; a place to keep the madness of the world at bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year before, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.
Spring Cannot be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms art's capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and the art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney's new, unpublished Normandy iPad drawings and paintings alongside works by van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others.
We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for sixty years yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for decades: light, colour, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see... but about how to live.
By:
Martin Gayford,
David Hockney
Imprint: Thames & Hudson
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 198mm,
Width: 129mm,
Weight: 450g
ISBN: 9780500296608
ISBN 10: 050029660X
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 16 June 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1 An unexpected move 2 Studio work 3 La vie française: French life in a Bohemian style 4 Lines and time 5 A merry Christmas and an unexpected New Year 6 Locked down in paradise 7 A house for an artist and a painter’s garden 8 The sky, the sky! 9 Sumptuous blacks and subtler greens 10 Several smaller splashes 11 Everything flows 12 Rippling lines and musical spaces 13 Lost (and found) in translation 14 Picasso, Proust, and pictures 15 Being somewhere 16 Full moon in Normandy
David Hockney is perhaps the most critically acclaimed artist of our age. He has produced work in almost every medium and has stretched the boundaries of all of them. His bestselling Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters is also published by Thames & Hudson, as are his previous books in partnership with Martin Gayford: A Bigger Message and A History of Pictures. Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator. His books include Modernists & Mavericks, Man with a Blue Scarf, A Bigger Message, Rendez-vous with Art (with Philippe de Montebello), A History of Pictures (with David Hockney), and, most recently, The Pursuit of Art, all published by Thames & Hudson.
Reviews for Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy
'This book is not so much a celebration of spring as a springboard for ideas about art, space, time and light. It is scholarly, thoughtful and provoking' - The Times 'A burst of springtime joy' - Daily Telegraph 'Lavishly illustrated… Gayford is a thoughtfully attentive critic with a capacious frame of reference' - Guardian 'Gloriously illustrated … It’s a book about many things – Hockney’s love of France and French painting, his reflections on many other artists among them. But at its heart is this octogenarian’s adoration of nature, his belief that art is rooted in love, and a restless gusto for life ' - Andrew Marr, The Spectator
