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A previously unseen painting by David Hockney has been revealed for the first time ahead of its unveiling in the biggest exhibition to be devoted to one of Britain’s foremost living artists.
Titled After Blake: Less is Known than People Think, the work will be among hundreds of previously unknown Hockneys that are to be displayed alongside his famous masterpieces at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris from April.
Hockney, 87, found inspiration for the enigmatic composition in a watercolour by William Blake, the early 19th-century master, who was in turn inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, the 14th-century narrative poem about the author’s imaginary journey through hell, purgatory and paradise.
The work will appear alongside new paintings, created within recent weeks and months, as well as those that have been hidden from view for decades in the artist’s studio or in private collections. Other previously unseen works will include a new self-portrait, Play within a Play, which shows the artist contemplating his own art.
Hockney has been invited to take over the entire building – a vast landmark “glass cloud” designed by the architect Frank Gehry – for an exhibition that he describes as exceptional in its scale.
The new exhibition will feature the Bradford-born artist’s best-known paintings, including A Bigger Splash and will also showcase Hockney’s multidisciplinary talent as a painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, in a career in which he has employed a range of tools from oil and canvas to digital tablet.
Over the past two years, Hockney has worked closely on the show with its curator, Sir Norman Rosenthal, the former chief curator of the Royal Academy of Arts, who has staged a number of ground-breaking exhibitions.
Rosenthal said: “David Hockney is one of the great artists. He is as close to Van Gogh as you can be as a contemporary artist. He’s serious, but also unbelievably accessible, a kind of artist-philosopher. Working with him on this scale, I’ve really discovered him.”
In a statement, Hockney said: “This exhibition means an enormous amount because it is the largest exhibition I’ve ever had – 11 rooms in the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Some of the most recent paintings I’m working on now will be included in it, and I think it’s going to be very good.”
The show will also feature a whole floor devoted to Hockney’s Normandy paintings, created on iPad and canvas, almost none of which have been seen before. They reflect that day after day, season after season, he had captured variations in the light.
Among many previously-unseen portraits is one of Rosenthal, who said: “In the last year, he’s painted me twice. I went to the studio for about ten days. In each sitting, for about three hours, he looks at you and you don’t talk a great deal. You try to be reasonably still… Both portraits look like me.”
The Blake-inspired work, which measures 72 x 48”, is an acrylic on canvas created in 2024. David Bindman, a leading Blake scholar, spoke of its inspiration from Blake’s watercolour in Tate Britain – “Dante and Virgil Approaching the Angel Who Guards the Entrance of Purgatory” – in which Purgatory is shown with threatening red clouds.
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He said: “It’s an important moment in Dante’s self-discovery and it’s interesting Hockney should have chosen that particular phase. Hockney’s painting is pretty impressive, perhaps suggesting a journey of self-discovery.”
As well as unearthing many works from private collections, Rosenthal was astonished to find works that nobody has seen in Hockney’s own collection. He also discovered a “beautiful” 1960s painting, “Renaissance Head”, in the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, “which almost nobody’s ever seen”, since it was acquired soon after Hockney had graduated from the Royal College of Art.
Some paintings will be so fresh off the easel that they will not have been finished before the accompanying Thames & Hudson book has gone to press.
Rosenthal spoke of Hockney’s prolific energy: “I went away for Christmas and, when I came back, David had two new paintings, which is incredible. He loves life. He loves art and he loves painting.”
David Hockney 25 runs from 9 April to September 1.
