Pont-l'Évêque (France) (AFP)

From engraving to drawing on a tablet, printed works by David Hockney are the subject of an exhibition in Normandy, in Pont-l'Evêque, about twenty kilometers from the house where the British painter has lived and worked for two years. .

"Impressions 1970-2020" presents until September 26 in a former 16th and 17th century convent some fifty prints (lithographs, engravings, prints of drawings on smartphone or tablet) and photographs, by the artist, the one of the most popular living painters.

"We wanted to show the more intimate character of the printed work, sometimes unrecognized, in an intimate place," Gaëtane Barbenchon-Lang, curator of the exhibition, told AFP.

This is the first exhibition in Normandy of this major figure of pop art known for the bright and joyful colors of many of his works, specifies Jean Frémon, long-time friend of the painter and president of the Lelong and co gallery in Paris who, with the BNF, lent the exhibited works.

From Polaroid to tablet, photocopier and smartphone, David Hockney, now 84, has explored many techniques over the decades.

A portrait of David Hockney by the painter Lucian Freud presented on June 22, 2021 at Sotheby's in London Tolga Akmen AFP / Archives

From a photograph of his parents in 1975 emanates a tender gaze of the artist, as well as illustrations, of A Simple Heart by Flaubert, for which David Hockney took his mother as a model.

These engravings on loan from the BNF are exhibited for the first time.

"Great reader", Proust lover, David Hockney "only makes portraits of people he really knows" so that his works bear witness to the interiority of the model, underlines Mr. Frémon.

A photo collage from the 1980s consisting of several portraits of the same person taken at short intervals, in a kaleidoscope style, shows the desire of this great admirer of Picasso to "bring the lesson of cubist painting into photography" , underlines Mr. Frémon.

"By showing the different angles, it's much more alive," he notes.

Upstairs, the visitor discovers the painter's house, nestled in the heart of the Normandy countryside.

David Hockney therefore photographed his watercolors to enlarge them for printing.

"It is the enlargement that is the work. He is very concerned that each line is visible", explains Mr. Frémon.

Opposite, large-format printed tablet drawings plunge the visitor into the artist's native region of Yorkshire.

The bright Norman and English greens echo each other, as do the half-timbering of the painter's house with those of the convent where he is exhibited.

© 2021 AFP