In Front of House Looking South, 2019
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About this work
In Front of House Looking South (2019) depicts La Grande Cour, David Hockney’s seventeenth-century home in Normandy. Its broad red roof and half-timbered façade dominate a scene of green hedges, surrounding fields and parked cars. Historical architecture and ordinary contemporary life occupy the same closely observed setting.
The composition invites the eye to move between the house, the foreground vegetation and the smaller building beyond. Rather than isolating a picturesque landmark, Hockney brings the details of an inhabited place into a sustained exploration of looking and spatial relationships.
Exhibition and series context
Hockney began working at La Grande Cour in 2019. That year, Pace Gallery’s exhibition La Grande Cour, Normandy introduced works made in this new environment, including four drawings of the house viewed from different directions. These early Normandy works continued his exploration of how a picture can bring together different experiences of looking at a place.
In Front of House Looking South was subsequently included as an inkjet print in GRAY’s Hockney in Normandy exhibition in New York, held from February 22 to March 19, 2021. The exhibition brought together prints developed from Hockney’s works on paper alongside recent iPad works, documenting distinct approaches to his French surroundings.
The composition belongs to the early chapter of Hockney’s Normandy project, preceding the intensive observation of spring that became a focus of his work in 2020.
Exhibition documentation
- Pace Gallery, David Hockney: La Grande Cour, Normandy, New York, September 14 – October 19, 2019.
- GRAY, David Hockney: Hockney in Normandy, New York, February 22 – March 19, 2021.
- GRAY, Hockney in Normandy, online viewing room: works and edition details.
Further reading on Hockney’s Normandy years
- Françoise Mouly, “David Hockney Rediscovers Painting,” The New Yorker, February 17, 2022.
- Laura Cumming, “David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy 2020 review – pixels at dawn,” The Observer, May 23, 2021. A review of Hockney’s later 2020 iPad works, rather than this print.
