The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will examine the common ground between David Hockney (English, born 1937) and Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890) in Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature. The exhibition reveals Van Gogh’s unmistakable influence on Hockney’s work through a collection of 57 carefully selected landscape paintings and drawings by the two artists.
This exhibition shows how two visionary artists, separated in time and space, are united by a shared fascination with nature. It also give the visitors to see these two visionary artists side-by-side. Gary Tinterow, MFAH Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair said “We are delighted to collaborate with David Hockney and the Van Gogh Museum to bring these exceptional works to our audience in Houston.”
In the paintings showcased at the Exhibition, Van Gogh and Hockney expressed their profound love of nature through brilliant color and the capacity to see the world with fresh eyes. Through a bold use of color and experimentation with perspective, each artist crafts a painterly world that is utterly individual and true to themselves, yet offers immense universal appeal.
The Joy of Nature brings together nearly 50 of Hockney’s vibrant works, ranging from intimate sketchbook studies to monumental paintings, as well as his experimental videos and iPad drawings, with 10 carefully chosen paintings and drawings by Van Gogh.
The central Hockney works selected for this exhibition were painted in the 2000s in Yorkshire Wolds, in northeastern England, where Hockney returned after almost 40 years in Los Angeles to visit his ailing mother and a terminally ill friend. There, he painted landscapes in plain air revealing through observations of the changing seasons how light, space, and nature are constantly in flux. This shows Hockney’s love for the nature and expose clear links to Van Gogh’s landscapes, such as Field with Irises near Arles (1888) and Path in the Garden of the Asylum (1890).