David Hockney is arguably Britain’s greatest living artist and this collection of portraits at the National Portrait Gallery shows us why. It’s filled with diverse works and while it is largely drawings – as the title suggests – paintings and photography feature heavily too.
This show originally opened in 2020 and lasted only 20 days before it was shut down due to the pandemic-induced lockdown. However, as Hockney is highly prolific he’s produced lots more works since and this show has over 30 new works that were never featured in the original show. The exhibition opens with a little nod to this fact with two self-portraits: one of Hockney as a boy that was in the original show, next to a more recent work where he’s understandably significantly older – but looking a lot more assured.