David Hockney self-portrait installed at museum ahead of new exhibition

A new self-portrait by David Hockney has been installed at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum where it is to go on public display for the first time.

The 84-year-old painted Self Portrait, 22nd November 2021 in Normandy, where he has previously spoken of living in the countryside without distractions from his art.

He previously described life creating art in a “higgledy-piggledy” house in northern France as “fantastic”.

“When the lockdown came, I think it was marvellous because I wanted to be isolated anyway,” he told last year’s Hay Festival.

David Hockney’s After Hobbema (Useful Knowledge) 2017 is installed at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum (David Hockney/ Joe Giddens/PA)

A series of drawings, paintings and digital works by the Bradford-born artist will be displayed at the Fitzwilliam and at the Heong Gallery at Cambridge’s Downing College as part of Hockney’s Eye: The Art And Technology Of Depiction.

It includes his latest self-portrait, which has not been displayed anywhere before, and some works that have not been displayed in the UK before, including the pieces Annunciation II, After Fra Angelico and After Hobbema (Useful Knowledge) 2017.

His self-portrait belongs to a group of works begun in late 2021, executed quickly and broadly so the marks of the artist’s brush are clearly visible.

In the Fitzwilliam Museum’s picture galleries, Hockney’s images will be shown in a “series of provocative encounters with works by artists including Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, John Constable and Andy Warhol”, the museum said.

David Hockney’s Annunciation II After Fra Angelico is going on display (David Hockney/Joe Giddens/PA)

Meanwhile, the display at the Heong Gallery charts his “pioneering modern experiments in bringing hand, eye, and optical instruments together from the 1960s to the present day”.

The exhibition, which is free, will run from Tuesday March 15 to August 29.