Hockney’s Harry Styles picture goes on display at National Portrait Gallery

David Hockney: Drawing From Life features more than 30 new portraits which are on show for the first time.

A painting of pop star Harry Styles by David Hockney has gone on display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of a new exhibition dedicated to the artist (Jordan Pettitt/PA) (PA Wire)

A painting of Harry Styles by David Hockney has gone on display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of a new exhibition dedicated to the artist.

David Hockney: Drawing From Life features more than 30 new portraits, which were created at his art studio in Normandy, France, between 2021 and 2022 and are on show for the first time.

Opening at the London gallery on Thursday, the exhibition boasts around 160 works spanning six decades of the artist’s life.

The painting of pop star Styles depicts the 29-year-old wearing an orange and red striped cardigan and blue jeans paired with a pearl necklace.

The exhibition also features portraits of Hockney’s mother, the late Laura Hockney; his friend, fashion designer Celia Birtwell; his former partner, curator Gregory Evans; and people from his local community in Normandy.

His self-portrait shows him smiling while dressed in a blue checked suit with a white cap.

The exhibition was previously on display at the National Portrait Gallery for just 20 days in 2020 before it was closed due to the pandemic.

In addition to the 33 new works, there are also coloured pencil drawings created in Paris in the early 1970s and a selection of drawings from the 1980s, when the artist created a self-portrait every day over a period of two months.

The pieces in the exhibition have been created in pencil, pastel, ink and watercolour, with Hockney also making use of a 35mm camera and apps on his iPhone and iPad.

New portraits of the artist’s partner, Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima, also mark a return to painting after Hockney spent time using his iPad to capture the Normandy landscape around his home.

The artworks in the exhibition have been drawn from public and private collections, including the David Hockney Foundation.

– David Hockney: Drawing From Life will run at the National Portrait Gallery from November 2 to January 21 2024.