It had to happen; pop’s main man, Harry Styles, has teamed up with the godfather of British art, David Hockney. The octogenarian artist captured the former One Direction frontman on canvas last May, inviting him to his Normandy studio for the painting session. Styles, as stylish as ever in his striped cardigan and pearls, looks relaxed in the picture which also gives him an hirsute demeanour. Hockney remained nonplussed of course. “I wasn’t really aware of his celebrity then,” Hockney told Vogue UK. “He was just another person who came to the studio.”
Over 30 new portraits painted at the Normandy base between 2021 and 2022 will be displayed for the first time when David Hockney: Drawing from Life opens at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), London, this winter (2 November-21 January 2024). New single and double portraits include depictions of the artist’s partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, and people from the local Normandy community. The NPG show, which focuses on five main sitters including the textile designer Celia Birtwell, was open just 20 days before the gallery’s closure due to Covid-19 in March 2020. Harry (plus pearls) will naturally have pride of place in the NPG blockbuster exhibition.