Cambridge: David Hockney self-portrait to be displayed in UK first

A new self-portrait by David Hockney is to go on show for the first time in the UK.

The painting of Hockney, 84, will feature in a collection of his works at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

The acrylic painting shows Hockney dressed in a tweed suit with a paintbrush in one hand and cigarette in the other.

The Heong Gallery at Downing College will also showcase his paintings and digital drawings from 15 March.

The exhibition titled Hockney's Eye: The Art and Technology of Depiction will run until 29 August.

In the Fitzwilliam Museum's picture galleries, Hockney's drawings, paintings and digital artworks, will be shown alongside works by artists including, William Hogarth, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet.

The museum said this would "enable Hockney and and artists of the past to speak directly to each other for the first time."

Luke Syson, director of the museum, said: "David Hockney's much loved for his wonderful colour and for his brilliant draftsmanship. It can all seem effortless, but far from it.

"We've set out to show how incredibly hard Hockney thinks about the ways we look at the world around us, how he's analysed the painters in the past who used optical technologies to make their images more visually convincing, and what that means for his own, highly considered, wonderfully experimental picture-making.

"This is a show that grew from our Cambridge culture, an exhibition that we think will feel at home in a place where the arts and sciences meet on equal terms."

Co-curator of the exhibit Jane Munro said: "Drawing significantly on the Fitzwilliam's remarkable collections, this is the first exhibition to give serious scholarly scrutiny to Hockney's ideas as well as his art."

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