I knew and liked Hockney's large woodland paintings and had hoped there would be some new ones and I had also been looking forward to seeing the ipad drawings, but the show surpassed all expectations and left me gasping with respect and joy.
The paintings, mostly of woodland near his home in Yorkshire, are huge, colourful, competent, magnificent and loving (and more than the sum of those parts). The grid features largely in this exhibition; the huge wall sized pictures are made up of smaller canvases; other paintings are on single canvases, displayed in massive, celebratory grids; and there is a huge eighteen screened grid showing compelling and beautiful moving images (shot with nine cameras). The smaller paintings, some water colour and some oil, whilst retaining a cohesive and visionary language of their own, also pay homage to other painters, including Van Gogh, Degas and Cezanne.
In case I haven't made this clear, I think the exhibition is astounding and you should see it if you haven't already!
Most of the work is in glorious colour but here are some perfect charcoal drawings from the show.
