“I work every day, not out of fear — but joy,” David Hockney says.
At 88, David Hockney remains the consummate artist of observation. The recent Telegraph interview with Hockney, timed to coincide with his new show at Annely Juda Fine Art, finds him as curious and irreverent as ever - a man who, after seven decades of work, still wakes each morning with a singular purpose: to look, to draw, to paint, to see.
It’s a sentiment that feels rare in an age of speed and distraction. For collectors and admirers of Hockney’s art, that joy - unpretentious, radiant, yet deeply philosophical - is exactly what we respond to. It’s there in the shimmering turquoise of A Bigger Splash, in the pale English light of The Arrival of Spring, in the elegant simplicity of his iPad drawings. And it’s still there now, perhaps even more so, as the artist prepares for his much-anticipated Serpentine Gallery exhibition in 2026 — a celebration not of nostalgia, but of renewal.
From the outset, Hockney’s career has been defined by a restlessness of vision. Few artists have bridged so effortlessly the divide between the private and the universal, the local and the global, the handmade and the digital. His California pools and Yorkshire landscapes are by now icons of modern British art — yet what truly endures is his way of making us see again. In his Telegraph interview, Hockney speaks of death without sentimentality, describing time as “short” and work as “essential.” But there’s no melancholy in this awareness. Instead, he radiates vitality - an artist liberated by the urgency to make. It’s this lightness - the ability to face the profound with humour and grace - that makes Hockney’s late work so captivating. These are not the gestures of an artist slowing down, but of one distilling decades of looking into pure, immediate expression.
Opening 12 March – 23 August 2026, the forthcoming Serpentine North exhibition marks Hockney’s first collaboration with the institution - and promises to be one of the cultural highlights of the year. The show will gather works created over the past decade, including A Year in Normandie - his ninety-metre-long digital frieze charting the seasons at his Normandy home - as well as new sunrise and moonlight studies exploring the passage of time. There is a cyclical poetry to this. Hockney, who has spent his career chasing light across Los Angeles, Bridlington and now rural France, returns once more to the question that has preoccupied him since the 1960s: how do we see the world as it truly is? This upcoming exhibition will offer not a summation, but an extension - an artist still innovating, still surprising, and still communicating the wonder of perception through colour, line and technology. For Andipa’s collectors, it also signals an important moment in the market. Late-career Hockneys - particularly his iPad works and limited edition prints - have drawn growing institutional and private attention. The Serpentine show will no doubt catalyse renewed focus on this body of work, highlighting how Hockney continues to push at the boundaries of both medium and meaning.
At Andipa, we have long admired Hockney’s gift for synthesis - his ability to weave tradition and innovation into a single, cohesive visual language. His iPad drawings, for instance, are often misunderstood as technological novelties. Yet they are, in many ways, the purest expression of drawing itself: fast, intuitive, direct. They strip away material fuss and reveal the essence of his art - observation, discipline, joy. Collectors often ask us whether these works hold the same weight as his earlier paintings. Our view is unequivocal: yes. Hockney’s digital works are not secondary artefacts but central to understanding his philosophy. They demonstrate how an artist rooted in the lineage of Picasso and Matisse has found new tools to express timeless ideas. In that sense, Hockney is a mirror of our own ethos at Andipa - embracing change, but never abandoning craft. His lifelong fascination with the act of seeing resonates deeply with our commitment to attention, relationships and the enduring beauty of art made with purpose.
For those considering a Hockney work today, the coming months offer a moment of reflection. The Serpentine exhibition will almost certainly reaffirm his stature as the most beloved British artist of his generation - but it will also invite new readings of his practice, particularly in light of his ongoing digital experiments. At Andipa, we encourage collectors to view this period not merely as an opportunity to acquire, but to reconnect: to rediscover the freshness that drew them to Hockney in the first place. Whether through an intimate iPad drawing, a lyrical landscape, or one of his playful editions, each piece carries that rare quality of optimism - an art of seeing, of noticing, of delight.
Hockney once wrote that drawing teaches us to be “more aware of the world around you.” That awareness - that attentiveness - feels more urgent than ever. His Serpentine show, like his career, reminds us that art’s true subject is not simply beauty or form, but perception itself. It’s about looking, slowly and deeply, until the ordinary becomes luminous. As we look ahead to 2026, Andipa will be watching with admiration - celebrating not only the longevity of Hockney’s vision, but the timeless invitation his art extends to all of us: to keep looking, to keep learning, to keep seeing anew.
Explore available works by David Hockney at Andipa Gallery. For private viewings or collector enquiries, please contact enquiries@andipa.com.
