David Hockney At Serpentine North: A Year In Normandie Exhibition Running Through Summer 2026

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best arts and entertainment magazine UK“, David Hockney’s vibrant celebration of life, colour, and the changing seasons, A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, now on view at Serpentine North.

David Hockney’s highly anticipated exhibition A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting continues at Serpentine North in London, offering visitors a vibrant celebration of painting, nature, and the passage of time. Running from 12 March to 23 August 2026, the show marks the celebrated British artist’s first presentation at Serpentine and remains open to the public throughout the summer months.

Exhibition Highlights at Serpentine North

The exhibition brings together a new body of work created specifically for Serpentine alongside Hockney’s monumental frieze A Year in Normandie (2020-2021), which is on public view in London for the first time. Admission is completely free, making this a rare opportunity to experience one of the world’s most important living artists in a major public gallery setting.

Hockney, now in his late eighties, continues to demonstrate extraordinary creative energy and innovation in the language of painting. The show reflects his lifelong fascination with observation, light, colour, and the rhythms of the natural world.

New Still Lifes and Portraits

A highlight of the exhibition is a fresh series of ten paintings: five still lifes and five portraits depicting members of Hockney’s close circle, including family and carers. These works share a consistent frontal composition and are unified by the recurring motif of a gingham tablecloth that anchors each scene.

In these pieces, Hockney masterfully blends abstract and figurative approaches. He views all figurative painting as inherently abstract because it exists on a flat surface, an idea that informs the dynamic tension in these new compositions.

A Year in Normandie: A Monumental Digital Frieze

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the expansive frieze A Year in Normandie, which wraps around the perimeter gallery at Serpentine North. Created between 2020 and 2021, the work consists of more than 100 iPad paintings that document the changing seasons at Hockney’s former studio in Normandy, France.

During the spring of 2020, when much of the world slowed down, Hockney intensified his daily observations of nature. Working rapidly and intuitively on his iPad — much like the Impressionists painted en plein air — he captured shifts in light, weather, and landscape. The format draws inspiration from traditional Chinese scroll paintings and the eleventh-century Bayeux Tapestry, resulting in a panoramic, immersive experience that guides viewers through spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

The radiant compositions feature bold flat areas of colour combined with playful, pop-art-inspired details, encouraging visitors to slow down and appreciate the beauty in everyday natural cycles, such as the arrival of spring blossoms or the changing quality of light at different times of day.

Garden Mural and Outdoor Connection

Complementing the indoor displays, Serpentine has installed a large-scale printed mural by Hockney in the garden at Serpentine North. The mural reproduces a spring scene from A Year in Normandie featuring a tree house. Positioned at the back of the North Gallery, it creates a dialogue between the gallery interior and the surrounding park landscape, echoing the work’s origins in Hockney’s own Normandy garden.

Hockney’s Enduring Vision

Throughout his career, Hockney has championed painting as a source of deep pleasure and a means to overcome despair. He believes that new ways of seeing can lead to new ways of feeling, and that art has the power to transform how we experience the world. This exhibition embodies that philosophy, inviting audiences to reconnect with nature’s beauty and the simple joy of looking closely.

Serpentine’s presentation highlights the artist’s ability to fuse figurative and abstract elements across still lifes, portraits, and large-scale narrative works, while offering a deeply personal meditation on time and seasonal change.

Planning Your Visit

With the exhibition open through 23 August 2026, there is still plenty of time to experience this vibrant showcase during the warmer months. Located in Kensington Gardens, Serpentine North provides a perfect setting for exploring Hockney’s celebration of renewal and the cycles of nature.

Whether you are a long-time admirer of David Hockney or discovering his work for the first time, this free exhibition offers an uplifting and visually rich encounter with one of contemporary art’s most vital figures.

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