‘We have lost touch with nature, rather foolishly as we are a part of it, not outside it. This will in time be over and then what? What have we learned? … The only real things in life are food and love, in that order, just like [for] our little dog Ruby… and the source of art is love. I love life.’
DAVID HOCKNEY

An uplifting manifesto that affirms art’s capacity to divert and inspire, Spring Cannot be Cancelled draws on a wealth of conversations and correspondence between David Hockney and art critic Martin Gayford, in which the artist reflects upon life as he self-isolates in rural France. Their exchanges span nature, food, art, opera, fairy tales and more, and are illustrated by a selection of Hockney’s Normandy iPad drawings and paintings alongside works by other artists, including van Gogh, Monet and Bruegel. We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder, still utterly absorbed by the themes that have fascinated him for decades: light, colour, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see... but about how to live.