David Hockney: A Year in Normandie in Dialogue with Works from the Würth Collection
Under the title "A Year in Normandie in Dialogue with Works from the Würth Collection", Museum Würth 2 in Künzelsau, Baden-Württemberg looks forward to a highlight in our art calendar for 2023. This is the first showing in a German art museum of the 90-meter-long iPad frieze A Year in Normandie by David Hockney.
Presenting this important work by the internationally renowned British master of landscape painting alongside pieces from the Würth Collection promises to be a uniquely fortunate encounter in many respects: a dialogue among different phases of careers and lives, diverse media, and an expression of years-long contacts between artist and collector. The presentation will take place between April 3 and July 16, 2023.
A Year in Normandie composites a series of iPad paintings, in which Hockney recorded his surroundings over a year's time, adapting the format of the renowned Bayeux Tapestry. This enormous 11th-century embroidery records the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which ended with the submission of England to the Normans. This historical sequence of imagery inspired the artist to adopt its unusual dimensions for his vision of his own environment. Painstakingly and with an intense gaze, Hockney studied his surroundings en plein air. Relying on his continual aid, an iPad, he translated what he saw into a strikingly luminous band in the changing colors of the seasons.
Another unique factor in this presentation of an iPad painting of this size is the exchange between the Normandie frieze and works by Hockney from the Würth Collection, principally paintings and videos from Yorkshire. The result is an encounter in Künzelsau between the north of England and the northern French region, including the four great large-format oils Three Trees near Thixendale, recording their appearance over the course of the seasons.
Museum Würth 2
Embedded in the Sculpture Garden, the latest addition to the Würth Museum complex was inaugurated in 2020 as an expansion of the Carmen Würth Forum. The lucid, understated architecture by David Chipperfield Architects with its high-ceilinged naturally illuminated space, the Belvedere with its entirely glazed facade, and a cabinet designed for light-sensitive works, forms an ideal site for the presentation of major works of modern and contemporary art from the collection.
David Hockney:
A Year in Normandie in Dialogue with Works from the Würth Collection
April 4 - July 16, 2023
10 a.m. - 6 p.m. daily
Admission free
Museum Würth 2
Künzelsau
Am Forumplatz 1
74653 Künzelsau
Germany
www.kunst.wuerth.com / APP Würth Collection / Instagram @ Wuerth_Collection
