David Hockney may be approaching his tenth decade but he is showing no signs of slowing down as a pair of Tate galleries enlist the artist to help create two major shows next year.
A multimedia installation of Hockney’s designs for opera stage sets and costumes is to be held in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Hockney will “animate” his digitised designs before they are projected onto large screens and set to music.
Meanwhile, sister gallery Tate Britain will present a career-spanning exhibition focusing on the role that “family, friends and lovers” have played in Hockney’s art over the past 70 years.
David Hockney in 2021 in front of his work A Year in NormandieTHOMAS COEX/AFP/getty images
The double celebration of Hockney next year, when he will turn 90, is an indication of the artist’s continuing appetite for work — as well as his guarantee of ticket sales.
There have been numerous Hockney exhibitions in the past decade as cash-strapped institutions lean into his status as, arguably, Britain’s most loved living artist.
The National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and Royal Academy of Arts have all staged blockbuster shows in the last five years, as has Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, Bradford’s National Science and Media Museum and London’s Serpentine North Gallery.
The Tate Modern will host one of the Hockney exhibitions, the other will be at the Tate BritainElena Zolotova/Getty Images
His Bigger & Closer (Not Smaller & Further Away) immersive exhibition is currently travelling the world after opening in London, while last year’s display at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris brought together 400 of his works.
Hockney’s stage designs are a lesser-known aspect of his output. His first stage creation made its debut more than 50 years ago, when the Glyndebourne Festival Opera commissioned him to design the set and costumes for its 1974 production of The Rake’s Progress.
Hockney’s Bigger & Closer interactive show at Lightroom King’s Cross in LondonJustin Sutcliffe/Lightroom
Four years later he designed the set for its The Magic Flute, followed by a series of commissions from New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Los Angeles Opera and, in 1992, from the Royal Opera House.
Hockney once said that he had “spent about 20 years doing about ten operas … I liked it because I was given a reasonably free hand; only I didn’t do anything I didn’t feel I wanted to.”
The artist, who was born in Bradford and spent much of his career living in California, has continued to work throughout his 80s. Recently he has staged a number of exhibitions of his iPad artworks, many created while he was living in Normandy.
Tate Modern’s Turbine Hallguy bell/Alamy
Hockney’s show at Tate Britain next year — which comes a decade after the institution hosted the second retrospective of his career, a tribute he shares with Francis Bacon — is set to bring together more than 200 works spanning his seven-decade career.
Tate said the show would focus on the artist’s “trailblazing 1960s explorations of queer love and desire to tender depictions of his parents and recent works exploring private moments in his home and studio”.
The Hockney double-bill is one of a number of firsts in Tate’s 2027 programme to have been revealed on Monday. Tate Modern will host its first exhibition of one of the founding fathers of modern art, Claude Monet, while an exhibition on Edvard Munch will look at the works of the Norwegian artist, best known for The Scream, “through the lens of cinema and storytelling”.
Tate Britain, meanwhile, will bring together 120 works by Thomas Gainsborough in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the “quintessentially Georgian artist’s” birth.
Karin Hindsbo, interim director of the family of galleries after Maria Balshaw’s departure this month, said it was an “exhibition programme only Tate could deliver”.
The Sick Child by Edvard Munch (1907)
“It spans the centuries, from the 1500s to the present day, and it spans the globe, from Europe to Asia, Africa and America. Even more importantly, the programme reflects a deep appreciation of artists themselves,” Hindsbo said.
Four other Tate exhibitions to look out for in 2027
Baya
Last year’s Tate Modern exhibition on Emily Kam Kngwarray, the relatively unknown Australian Aboriginal artist, was one of its best. Next year exhibition’s on the Algerian artist Baya could be another successful example of highlighting a largely unknown female artist only now beginning to get due credit.
Sonia Boyce
Boyce, a 63-year-old Londoner, has had many firsts in her 40-year career, from the first black female Royal Academician to the first black woman to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. Now she gets her first Tate Britain retrospective exhibition, showcasing her large-scale installations, photography, collage, drawings, films and sculptures.
Turner Prize
For the first time the contemporary art prize visits the southwest of England with the 2027 exhibition of the shortlisted artists due to open at Tate St Ives in autumn. The prize ceremony itself will be held in December.
The Tudors
Much-loved portraits of Henry VIII, his wives and Elizabeth I will be brought together for Tate’s first major presentation of Tudor art in 30 years. On display will be more than 150 oil paintings, miniatures, sculptures and decorative art objects.