National Gallery(London)

 8 August until 27 October 2024

‘I must tell you that I love the collection of the National Gallery’.

(David Hockney in a letter dated 5 March 1979 to the then Director of the National Gallery, Michael Levey)

Two masterpieces by David Hockney (born 1937) that feature reproductions of Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (probably about 1437–45) will go on display at the National Gallery alongside the original Renaissance painting from 8 August until 27 October 2024.

Image: Left: David Hockney, 'Looking at Pictures on a Screen', 1977. Private collection © David Hockney. Centre: Piero della Francesca, 'The Baptism of Christ', probably about 1437–45 © The National Gallery, London. Right: David Hockney, 'My Parents', 1977 Tate, purchased 1981 © David Hockney. Photo: Tate, London

This focused exhibition will explore the figurative painter David Hockney’s lifelong association with the National Gallery and passionate interest in its collection in general and with the 15th-century Italian painter Piero della Francesca (1415/20–1492) in particular. Indeed, on one occasion, Hockney confessed of 'The Baptism of Christ', ‘I'd love to have that Della Francesca just so I could look at it every day for an hour.’

In Hockney’s 'My Parents' (1977), completed after two earlier attempts at painting this double portrait of Kenneth and Laura Hockney, a reproduction of Piero’s 'The Baptism of Christ' is reflected in a mirror on a trolley behind the sitters. 'Looking at Pictures on a Screen' (1977), depicts Hockney’s close friend Henry Geldzahler, the Belgian-born American curator of 20th-century art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, peering at a folding screen in the artist’s studio on which are stuck four posters of favourite National Gallery pictures including 'The Baptism of Christ'.

The exhibition will encourage visitors to draw comparisons between the 15th-century painting by Piero and the two paintings by Hockney, and to promote ‘slow looking’, an activity that, in Hockney’s opinion, is vital in letting people rediscover just how beautiful the world around them is.

It will also be an opportunity for the Gallery to celebrate 200 years of working with contemporary artists and to reinforce its continuing role in bringing artists, paintings and publics into a fruitful three-way dialogue, a key element of the celebrations to mark the Gallery’s Bicentenary.

Piero was the first artist to write a treatise on perspective 'De prospectiva pingendi'– that is, creating an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. In 'The Baptism of Christ', Piero’s earliest surviving painting, he has used mathematical principles to order his design, creating a visually harmonious and timeless image. Yet it is set within a landscape familiar to its original viewers in central Italy, thereby uniting them personally with this momentous episode from the New Testament, where earth and heaven conjoin at Christ’s baptism and his divine nature is announced from heaven.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication that will include an in-depth interview with David Hockney. Other chapters will examine the relationship that has existed between practising artists and the National Gallery over two centuries, highlighting how its paintings, especially Piero’s 'The Baptism of Christ', have provided a continued source of inspiration for artists. It will also consider how the Gallery’s pioneering exhibition series, 'The Artist’s Eye', in which Hockney participated in 1981 with 'Looking at Pictures on a Screen', allowed artists to act as curators and share pictures in new ways with broad audiences.

David Hockney, says ‘I didn’t visit London until I was 18 years old. The National Gallery was just there. They didn’t do exhibitions in those days. But I often went there as a student. I was always looking at Fra Angelico, Piero, Vermeer and Van Gogh. On those early visits I remember being affected by Piero’s 'The Baptism of Christ', it was marvellous. I understand what reproductions do. They've enriched my life a great deal, and I know a lot of things from looking at them. On the other hand, when you see the real paintings it is a different experience.’

Dr Susanna Avery-Quash, Lead Curator, says ‘As part of the Bicentenary celebrations, this focus display draws attention to the powerful if hidden story of the National Gallery as a catalyst in the creative life of the nation through its encouragement of contemporary artists to draw inspiration from its collection. David Hockney has been a lifelong devotee of the Gallery as this ‘in-conversation’ between two of his pictures and 'The Baptism of Christ' by Piero attests. We invite visitors to join in this visual conversation, to feast their eyes and be reminded of the pleasures and benefits to be derived from careful looking.’

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