David Hockney at 88: The Last Dance with Joy
David Hockney, at the age of 88, continues to dismantle expectations and reconstruct them in bright, playful color. In a Paris exhibition that Walter Benjamin might have admired for its sense of reverie, Hockney returns to the childlike joy that has long informed his best work. The show, described with characteristic insouciance as “Some Very, Very, Very New Paintings Not Yet Shown in Paris,” gathers a compact yet vibrant selection of interiors, still lifes, and portraits that feel like a fresh start rather than a final bow.
A Fresh Batch of Work: Interiors, Still Lifes, and Portraits
The new paintings speak to a renewed curiosity about daily life. Interior scenes glow with sunlit windows, polished surfaces, and the kind of intimate chaos that makes a room feel alive. Hockney’s interiors often function as stage sets for memory, where light pours through windows and bounces off walls in a way that elevates the ordinary into something magical. In these latest works, the painter’s signature confidence with perspective—whether in a tilted lens of a room or a careful horizon line—reframes familiar spaces as portals to recollection and optimism.
Still lifes in this suite are less about the object and more about the interplay of color, texture, and light. The painting becomes a dialogue between fruit, fabric, and the reflective surface of a table. Hockney’s approach turns ordinary objects into characters within a short, bright narrative. The viewer is invited to linger, to notice the way color and shadow interact, and to feel the same childlike excitement a person might feel on discovering a new favorite toy or game.
Portraits That Read Like Light-plays
Portraits in this collection carry a gentleness and immediacy that relates to Hockney’s early fascination with capturing a moment’s essence. The faces—whether of friends, family, or imagined sitters—are treated with a spontaneity that is both candid and controlled. The brushwork remains assured, allowing the sitter’s mood to emerge through a dance of color and line. The effect is not a meticulous documentation but a luminous impression of a moment’s warmth and curiosity. It’s as if Hockney, knowingly working near the end of a long arc, rediscovers the thrill of seeing someone anew and translating that feeling into pigment and light.
Childhood Revisited: A Thematic Thread
What marks these paintings as quintessentially Hockney is not simply the subject matter but the mood: a return to childhood as a source of energy, play, and fearless experimentation. The show’s rhetoric—“the return to childhood”—reads like a compass pointing toward a creative core that has never fully aged. This is not nostalgia; it is a reinvestment in the joy of looking, of arranging a space, of balancing color so that it sings, and of inviting the viewer to participate in that song. Hockney’s insistence on bright palettes and wide, unguarded smiles is a reminder that art can be a lifelong game, where the rules are set to delight rather than to prove mastery.
Why Paris, Why Now?
Paris remains a fitting stage for this late-career surge of whimsy and technical assurance. The city’s history with painting, its light, and its culture of conversation around modernism provide a receptive audience for a show that is at once intimate and expansive. Hockney’s work—made with a studio-to-rooflight sensibility—feels at home here, in a city that has long celebrated painters who push beyond the conventional. The timing is not merely retrospective; it is revelatory, offering viewers a chance to measure the arc of a life spent chasing light, color, and the stubborn refusal to grow dull.
What This Means for Viewers and Collectors
For contemporary audiences and collectors, these Very New Paintings signal that Hockney’s creative engine remains vibrant. The interiors, still lifes, and portraits in this Paris show invite fresh comparisons with his earlier, celebrated series, while asserting that experimentation remains central to his practice. The works are accessible, immediate, and deeply human—qualities that keep a late-career body of work vital and resonant in a contemporary art scene that often prizes novelty over longevity.
In the end, David Hockney at 88 isn’t a solemn milestone. It’s an exuberant reminder that art can age gracefully, keeping its joy intact and sharing it with new generations of viewers. The “Very New Paintings” are not a stopgap; they are a vibrant continuation of a life spent looking, painting, and teaching us how to see the world with a child’s sense of possibility.
