A new exhibition by the celebrated British artist David Hockney will open at London Serpentine’s Serpentine North Gallery on 12 March 2026, presenting new paintings alongside the artist’s monumental frieze A Year in Normandie. The exhibition, titled A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, will run until 23 August 2026 and marks Hockney’s first presentation at the Serpentine. Admission will be free.
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| David Hockney, London 2023 (Image credit: © David Hockney Photo Credit: Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima) |
The show follows the artist’s major retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2025, which featured more than 400 works spanning seven decades of his career. In contrast, the Serpentine exhibition offers a more intimate view of Hockney’s recent practice.
“David Hockney’s work invites us to look closely and rediscover the world around us,” said Bettina Korek, chief executiove of the Serpentine, adding that the gallery was pleased to present the works free of charge in the park setting.
At the centre of the exhibition will be A Year in Normandie (2020–2021), a panoramic frieze being shown in London for the first time.
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| David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, installation view, Serpentine North, 2026 © David Hockney. Photo: George Darrell |
Extending around the perimeter gallery, the work charts the changing seasons around Hockney’s former studio in Normandy, France. Created during the spring of 2020, when global lockdowns brought much of the world to a halt, the piece comprises more than 100 digital paintings produced on an iPad. Working quickly and intuitively, Hockney captured shifts in light, weather and landscape across the year.
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| David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, installation view, Serpentine North, 2026 © David Hockney. Photo: George Darrell |
The format of the work draws inspiration from Chinese scroll painting as well as the eleventh-century Bayeux Tapestry. The resulting compositions combine broad areas of bold colour with playful, pop-like details as spring gives way to summer, autumn and winter.
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| David Hockney, Abstraction Resting on a Red and White Checkered Tablecloth, 2025. (Image credit: © David Hockney. Photo: Prudence Cuming) |
Alongside the frieze, the exhibition will debut a new body of paintings created for the Serpentine. The series includes five still lifes and five portraits depicting members of Hockney’s close circle, including family members and carers. Each painting is arranged with a frontal composition and incorporates a recurring gingham tablecloth motif.
In these works Hockney merges abstract and figurative approaches. The artist has long argued that figurative painting is inherently abstract, as it exists on a flat surface. A large-scale mural by Hockney will also be installed in the garden at Serpentine North. The printed work depicts a tree house from the spring section of A Year in Normandie and will be displayed at the rear of the gallery, echoing its origin in the artist’s own garden in Normandy.
“I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure,” Hockney said in a statement. “There is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering, but I believe that my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair. New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling. I do believe that painting can change the world.”
Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine’s artistic director and curator of the exhibition alongside Claude Adjil, said Hockney continues to experiment with painting at the age of 88. He noted that the new portraits explore both the presence of the sitters and the act of seeing itself, while the frieze offers a personal reflection on the passage of time.
A catalogue designed by Hockney will accompany the exhibition, published by Serpentine and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König. The publication will include essays by Marco Livingstone and Olivia Laing, as well as a conversation between Hockney and Obrist.
Separately, the artist will unveil a new commission at Turner Contemporary in Margate on 1 April 2026. Created to mark the gallery’s 15th anniversary, the work will transform the Sunley Gallery’s floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the North Sea, measuring approximately seven by ten metres.
A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting - Serpentine North Gallery - 12 March - 23 August 2026 Admission Free
Images courtesy of The Serpentine, London
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