Artist David Hockney Is Moving to France Because It’s Illegal to Smoke Practically Anywhere in America

This weekend, David Hockney will
help inaugurate Pace gallery’s sprawling new headquarters in New York with a panoramic
exhibition of new landscape
drawings. 

Aesthetically, the bright,
breezy illustrations feel right at home within Hockney’s
well-defined oeuvre. Yet they also represent a significant change
for the venerable British artist: After decades in LA, the city
with which he’s become synonymous, the artist is moving to France,
and his new works depict the gardens outside his new house in
Normandy. 

The reason? Strict American
anti-smoking laws.

“I’d like to just work and
paint,” the notoriously chain-smoking artist told the
Wall Street
Journal in a recent
profile, explaining that Americans have become too severe when it
comes to his favorite habit—particularly in Los Angeles, where it’s
illegal to smoke in public places, including outside restaurants
and bars. “The French know how to live. They know about
pleasure.”

In France, the octogenarian
artist has the luxury of eating and smoking at the same time. “I’ve
smoked for more than 60 years,” Hockney says. “But I think I’m
quite healthy. I’m 82. How much longer do I have? I’m going to die
of either a smoking-related illness or a non-smoking-related
illness.”

Last year, after debuting a new
set of stained glass windows designed on his iPad for London’s
Westminster Abbey, Hockney spent some time in Northern France. On a
lark, he purchased a 17th-century garden home lined with hawthorn
thickets and apple, cherry, and pear trees. 

So inspired was Hockney that he
depicted just about every inch of his new home. The 24-panel suite
of drawings, titled “La Grande Cour” (the big yard) after the name
of the property, was also influenced by Chinese scroll painting and
the Bayeux Tapestry, a 230-foot-long medieval cloth that
illustrates the Norman conquest of England. The whole suite took
Hockney 21 days to finish. 

Indeed, Hockney is as productive
as ever—a fact that’s not lost on the artist, who has time on his
mind. “I’ve probably not much time left, and because I don’t, I
value it even more,” he told the WSJ. But certainly not
enough to stop smoking. If he’s lasted this long, why quit
now? 

“David Hockney:
La Grande Cour, Normandy” will be on view at Pace’s New York
headquarters from September 14–October 19, 2019.

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It’s Illegal to Smoke Practically Anywhere in America appeared
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