As David Hockney’s landmark exhibition at Serpentine North approaches its final days, his work is set to remain firmly in the international spotlight, with two major presentations opening in Australia this autumn. From his monumental A Year in Normandie to his celebrated printmaking and immersive digital work, these exhibitions demonstrate the extraordinary breadth of an artist whose seven-decade career continually challenged how we see, experience and represent the world.
David Hockney at Serpentine: A Year in Normandie
Closing on 23 August 2026, David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting marks Hockney’s first exhibition at Serpentine. The presentation brings together new paintings created especially for the exhibition with his monumental A Year in Normandie (2020–21), shown in London for the first time.
Created during the Covid lockdown near Hockney’s former studio in Normandy, A Year in Normandie records the changing seasons through more than 100 iPad paintings, assembled into an expansive panoramic frieze. Inspired in part by the Bayeux Tapestry, the work transforms observations of trees, weather, light and the landscape into a continuous meditation on time and place. At Serpentine, its imagery enters into dialogue with the surrounding landscape of Kensington Gardens, reinforcing Hockney’s lifelong fascination with nature and the act of looking.
Alongside the frieze, the exhibition presents five still lifes and five portraits depicting members of Hockney’s close circle. Their frontal compositions and recurring gingham tablecloth bring together abstraction and figuration, reflecting the artist’s enduring interest in the relationship between what we see and how we choose to depict it.
The response to the exhibition has been considerable. By July, more than 200,000 visitors had experienced Hockney’s monumental frieze at Serpentine, making the exhibition one of the gallery’s most popular. In its final weeks, Serpentine has extended opening hours on Fridays and Saturdays, allowing visitors to experience the exhibition and its garden mural into the evening, as reported in The Art Newspaper.
Hockney’s Enduring Passion for Printmaking
While Hockney is perhaps best known for his paintings and iconic depictions of California, swimming pools and landscapes, printmaking has been a vital part of his practice for more than six decades. His willingness to experiment with lithography, etching, photography, fax machines and, later, digital technology reflects a consistent curiosity about the possibilities of image-making.
This aspect of Hockney’s career will take centre stage at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, where David Hockney: Portraits in Print opens on 5 September 2026 and continues through 14 February 2027. The collection display brings together more than 60 works spanning nearly 30 years of Hockney’s portrait practice.
The exhibition explores Hockney’s representations of close friends, family and important figures within his personal and creative circles, including Celia Birtwell and Gregory Evans. Across the works, Hockney moves between naturalistic observation and fragmented, neo-Cubist approaches, revealing how portraiture provided a means of continually testing his visual language.
Particularly significant is the National Gallery of Australia’s substantial holding of Hockney prints and its connection with the renowned American printmaker and publisher Kenneth E. Tyler. Hockney’s collaborations with Tyler Graphics produced some of his most inventive editioned works, while the artist’s embrace of different processes demonstrates that technological experimentation has never been separate from his artistic practice. Rather, it has been another way of exploring intimacy, perception and the possibilities of the image.
Bigger & Closer: Hockney Arrives in Sydney
The Australian programme continues in Sydney from 22 October 2026, when Carriageworks presents the Australian premiere of David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away). Created by Hockney with Lightroom London, the immersive experience takes audiences through six decades of his artistic practice using large-scale projections, animation, sound and Hockney’s own narration.
The presentation moves between familiar and lesser-seen works, encompassing painting, photography, the Polaroid collages and the artist’s later iPad works. In doing so, it offers a fitting continuation of Hockney’s long-standing interest in technology and perception: the medium changes, but the fundamental question remains the same — how can art help us see the world differently?
Together, the three exhibitions — the closing presentation at Serpentine, Portraits in Print in Canberra and Bigger & Closer in Sydney — offer a remarkable overview of Hockney’s continuing relevance. They reveal an artist equally at home with the intimate portrait, the expansive landscape, the printed line and the possibilities of new technology.
Hockney’s work has always encouraged us to look again. As he has put it, “I’ve always had intense pleasure from looking.” That simple principle perhaps explains the enduring appeal of his art: whether through a print, painting, digital image or immersive experience, Hockney makes the familiar feel newly discovered.
