David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020, Royal Academy, 23rd May to 26th September
As lockdowns were imposed across the world last spring, the painter David Hockney found himself, in Normandy, “in a house, in the middle of a four-acre field full of fruit trees. I could concentrate on one thing, I did at least one drawing a day with the constant changes going on, all around the house.” Planned originally as a follow-on from an earlier series of spring pictures from West Yorkshire, the exhibition displays a collection of over 100 iPad drawings printed large scale on paper. It has taken on additional symbolic power as a joyous rebuttal of fear and an ardent dramatisation of renewal.
Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life, Design Museum, 19th June to 5th September
Arguably the most famous woman furniture designer of the 20th century, Charlotte Perriand was at first despised but then hired by the modernist architect Le Corbusier, and led with him a revolution in taste and lifestyle. Her radical design principles went hand in hand with her egalitarian politics, and her work expresses her fierce independence as a pioneering woman architect and designer, a sportswoman and a global traveller. This expansive show, first opened in Paris, tracks her life and career.
This Living Hand: Edmund de Waal Presents Henry Moore, Henry Moore Studios & Gardens, Perry Green, Hertfordshire, 19th May to 30th September
Delayed for over a year, this exhibition has accrued additional significance. Writer and artist Edmund de Waal has curated an exhibition of Henry Moore’s work focused on touch. Visitors will be encouraged to explore works with their hands, after washing them in a stone washbasin created by de Waal. The show will include a selection of original sculptures and other objects, as well as a group of drawings and sculptural works charting Moore’s interest in the hand as a subject.
