Two years ago—at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic—the ever-versatile and inventive artist David Hockney traveled to France with the express intention of capturing the emergence of spring.

One of England’s most versatile and inventive artists of the postwar era, Hockney became widely known in the 1960s for his vivid landscapes, domestic scenes, and intimate portraits born in California. The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 marks his third series documenting the blossoming of spring, having done his first in 2011 and the second in 2013. For this latest project, he observed the richness of the season from the bucolic surroundings of rural Normandy. Working en plein air (in the open air), he spent his days scrutinizing and recording the subtle, daily changes in the plants and light as spring emerged and took hold with all its drama and glory. The plein air approach was particularly fitting for his endeavor due to Normandy’s associations with the origin of French Impressionism. As Hockney noted, Monet witnessed and recorded 40 springs in nearby Giverny.

However, unlike his Impressionist predecessors and in keeping with his long-held embrace of contemporary technology (he has used fax machines, laser photocopiers, and other 20th- and 21st-century digital instruments throughout his six-decade career), Hockney used the medium of the iPad for The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020.