SPRING CANNOT BE CANCELLED: DAVID HOCKNEY IN NORMANDY

On turning eighty, David Hockney sought out rustic tranquillity for the first time: a place to watch the sunset and the change ofthe seasons, a place to keep the madness of the world at bay. So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference tolife at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year before, in time to paint thearrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.