Just returned from the Members’ Opening of the David Hockney Portraits exhibition at the Boston MFA. Although the works in the exhibition go all the way back to his teenage years, and represent all of his major periods and styles, I was startled by just how many of the pictures were less than a year old. (In fact Hockney did a set of six large portraits especially for this event.)
This is only the second Hockney show I’ve seen at the MFA: the first was a small collection of recent English landscapes about 10(?) years ago. This is very different: it’s a huge exhibition, with many previously undisplayed pictures from the artist’s own collection. If there is a weakness, it is perhaps that there is too much here: the exhibition might be better if more thematically focussed. But that’s a nit: it’s a wonderful show. The portraits are extremely revealing of Hockney, as an artist and as a person in relation to others. Highly recommended.