Ed Vaizey: The New David Hockney Exhibition Is Kickstarting ‘Bayeux Fever’

Beloved British artist David Hockney’s new exhibition is now open at the Serpentine until 23 August. At the heart of the show is A Year in Normandie, a 90m-long piece inspired by the historic Bayeux Tapestry that captures the changing seasons at Hockney’s former studio in Normandy. It is the artwork’s first time coming to London – corresponding perfectly with the Bayeux Tapestry returning to the city later this year for the first time since its creation in the 11th century.

To celebrate the opening of David Hockney: A Year in Normandie And Some Other Thoughts About Painting, former minister for culture Ed Vaizey reflects on meeting Hockney (and the Queen) and why moving the fragile Bayeux Tapestry back to the UK is a ‘risk worth taking’.

2026 Is The Year Of ‘Bayeux Fever’ – Kicking Off With Hockney’s Homage

Twenty years ago, one of my first visits as the Tory arts spokesman was to the Serpentine Galleries, the small but perfectly formed arts venue in the middle of Hyde Park. I sat down with its then director, the legendary Julia Peyton-Jones, to talk about arts funding. Julia pointed out that the Serpentine got very little support from the Arts Council. As a gallery benefiting from wealthy donors, she felt they were being punished for their success. After the meeting, I sent her as T shirt I had made with the slogan ‘Punish My Success’.  It felt suitably Tory boy-ish.

The Serpentine has continued to thrive under the tenure of long-time artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist, a man with owl-ish spectacles, a thick German accent, and an almost shaman quality when it comes to the arts. In recent years, he has pushed the Serpentine to move towards technology and the digital arts. In 2024 it held a major show of the Turkish artist Refik Anadol, whose mesmeric works have also been projected onto a wall at Davos, a stadium in Vegas, and the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

Now the Serpentine combines old and new, with its first ever show of work by David Hockney, Britain’s most-loved living male artist. I have only met Hockney once, at a creative industries do during the London Olympics in 2012. The poor Queen was standing on a podium in front of us, where for an hour she received the great and the good of the arts world. We both marvelled at her stamina. Last year I had a chance to pay indirect homage to Hockney, by staying with friends at the French homestead where Hockney painted his first swimming pool painting. There is fun to be had in holding up a print of the picture against the entirely unchanged pool and landscape.

Like the Serpentine, Hockney has pushed himself to become more digital, creating unique works on iPad and screen. A few years ago, he pioneered a site-specific immersive digital show at London’s Lightroom. But this Serpentine show is really special: Hockney has created a 90m site specific digital panorama of the Normandy countryside. The homage is easy to spot – to the millennium old Bayeux tapestry. The Bayeux of course is housed in Normandy, though it is just under 70m long, so the comparisons are not exact. It is coming to London in September and will be housed at the British Museum, sure to spark ‘Bayeux fever’ and set the be London’s biggest blockbuster exhibition since the museum’s Treasures of Tutankhamun in the 70s.

Hockney, of course, has spoken out against the tapestry coming to London, arguing that moving it will risk irreparable damage to this hugely fragile art work, surely one of the masterpieces of the modern world. I disagree. It is a risk worth taking, if only to revive interest in this extraordinary piece – and perhaps to remind the Brits of our European heritage. In any event, Hockney’s homage will be a masterpiece in itself. As the exhibition is free, I envisage queues round the block to see the work in the modest housing of the Serpentine Galleries. Good practice for the autumn at the British Museum.

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David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting is at the Serpentine from 12 March to 23 August. serpentinegalleries.org