These David Hockney drawings of life starting afresh are an uplifting antidote to the past year The 83-year-old artist's new exhibition, created during lockdown, offers hope to an injured world about 6 hours ago Jonathan Jones David Hockney: ‘I’m teaching the French how to paint Normandy.’ Photograph: Nathanael Turner/New York Times
“I think it looks terrific,” says David Hockney. “It’s all on one theme, isn’t it? And there’s not many exhibitions like that, really, a show all about the spring.” The 83-year-old artist is taking a look around his new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London for the first time. He seems happy with it – and rightly so, for it is hypnotic and ravishing. But while I am getting a sneak preview in person, Hockney is here only virtually, his face appearing on two screens, one a giant TV, the other on a small laptop.