David Hockney – Drawing from Life, National Portrait Gallery, UK

The Gallery’s autumn programme will see the return of the five-star exhibition, David Hockney: Drawing from Life which was staged for just 20 days before the Gallery’s closure due to Covid in March 2020. Recognised as one of the great draughtsmen of all time and a champion of the practice, drawing has been a constant for Hockney.

The exhibition explores the artist’s work over the last six decades through his intimate portraits of five sitters: his mother, Celia Birtwell, Gregory Evans, Maurice Payne and the artist himself. His familiarity with the sitters enables him to work with a range of mediums and styles, from pencil, pen and ink and crayon, to photographic collage and the iPad. The 2023 exhibition will also debut a selection of new portraits, which depict friends and visitors to the artist’s Normandy studio between 2020 and 2022.