Skip to product information
1 of 2

Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy

Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy

Regular price €17.95 EUR
Regular price Sale price €17.95 EUR
Sale Sold out
Tax included.
‘We have lost touch with nature, rather foolishly as we are a part of it, not outside it. This will in time be over and then what? What have we learned?... The only real things in life are food and love, in that order, just like [for] our little dog Ruby... and the source of art is love. I love life.'
David Hockney


On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquility for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the change of the seasons; a place to live a life of simple pleasures, undisturbed and undistracted; a place to keep the madness of the world at bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year before, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.

Spring Cannot be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms art’s capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and the art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney’s new, unpublished Normandy drawings and paintings alongside works by van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel and others.

We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for sixty years, yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for decades: light, colour, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see … but about how to live.
View full details
  • Shipping

    Please remember when purchasing for delivery, Click + Collect items will NOT be posted. Please select correct check out option.

  • Returns

    If you have any issues with your products and would like to return them, please reach out. We would be happy to help.

Where is my order?

Please remember to select the correct delivery options when purchasing on our online store.

Click + Collect orders will NOT be posted.

If you have already made the order and have selected the wrong option, please contact us at shop@imma.ie.