Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy

On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquillity for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the changing seasons, and to keep the noise of the world at bay. When Covid-19 and lockdown followed, life at La Grande Cour—the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where he had set up a studio a year earlier—continued much as before, as he worked on paintings capturing 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 meditation on art’s capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on conversations and correspondence between Hockney and art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated with Hockney’s pandemic-era drawings and paintings of Normandy, alongside works by Van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others.

We see how Hockney was propelled by his infectious enthusiasm and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he remained unconcerned with critical opinion or historical judgment. During lockdown, he immersed himself in northern France and the themes that had long fascinated him: light, color, space, perception, water, and trees.