An exhibition of the work of renowned British artist David Hockney is coming to Belgium this autumn.
The exhibition "David Hockney: Le Chant de la Terre", will run from 4 October 2025 to 25 January 2026 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Mons.
The exhibition will combine painting, music and poetry, with Gustav Mahler's titular symphony serving as a common thread. It will feature a series of paintings by Hockney, as well as some of his celebrated iPad compositions.
Visitors will also have the chance to see work by Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch and Constantin Meunier, whose landscapes – like those of Hockney – are focused on the cycle of the seasons.
A great chronicler of springtime
Hockney, 88, currently lives in London and paints for four to six hours every day.
Earlier in his career, he was known for his majestic, brightly-coloured paintings of swimming pool scenes in 1960s California. His most famous piece, A Bigger Splash, captured the moment a swimmer dived into a Los Angeles swimming pool.
These past few years, however, Hockney has become a widely-celebrated chronicler of springtime.
During the covid pandemic, he lived in rural Normandy, where he used his iPad to paint the trees and flowers blooming as the spring arrived. He said at the time, “Do remember they can't cancel the spring".
The biggest-ever exhibition of Hockney’s work opened earlier this year at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris.
