When the L.A. Louver gallery posted a snapshot of art and music legends David Hockney, 81, and Joni Mitchell, 75, at Hockney’s solo exhibition, “Something New in Painting (and Photography) [and even Printing] … Continued”, it went viral. The New York Times parsed 13 reasons WHY the image is so compelling to so many people, from “Because it is of two legends…” to “at a time of intensified obsession with the barren reaches of the digital world, the image is a joyful postcard from the analog one.”

Improvised Life Editor at Large, David Saltman, noted that you don’t need to know who the two people are in the photo, or that they are famous. The picture is remarkable for many subtle reasons. That the two elders seem so present and comfortable with themselves and each other, each with unique style.  That their colors resonate so miracularously with the painting in the background as to make one themselves…

We like David Olin’s comment in the Los Angeles Times:

…Hockney and Mitchell in 2019 may serve to open up our vision to what is possible, as they have done throughout their creative lives, illustrating the grace with which we might build a continuum between the present and the past.

 

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