David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

this is london“It is repetitive because that is Hockney's way...” This overwhelming accumulation of his recent work is the visual equivalent of being tied hand and foot and dumped under the loudspeakers of the Glastonbury Festival...

The Independent“Bigger does not always mean better..” His computer-cleaned takes on Claude's Sermon on the Mount are just appalling: it is as well that the dead cannot sue...

The Telegraph“Generally the mood is upbeat, homely yet wonderstruck...” Why would someone so clued up wilfully paint as though surrealism, colour-field abstraction, minimalism and all the rest hadn’t happened? These images are so passé they feel like a provocation. I don’t get it...

The Observer“Radiantly bright, spectacularly large in both scale and extent...” There is no underlying metaphor or building emotion, no sense of awe or melancholy or even much amazement. It is all things bright and beautiful all the time, with the possible exception of solitary stumps in winter clearings...