"Suddenly you find yourself with one of the greatest artists in the world"says a Norman elected official, who posed for the painter David Hockney

“All of a sudden you find yourself with one of the greatest artists in the world”tells ICI Normandie Sophie Gaugain, mayor of Dozulé in Calvados, a Norman village close to the one where the painter David Hockney settled in 2019, who died Thursday June 11 at the age of 88. In December 2022, the Normandy representative spent two days in the British artist’s studio, posing for him.

She describes an extremely simple man and recounts a meal shared on the go. “On an oilcloth, with small checks, blue and white, a casual snack. It was incredible luck and I really have a very moved thought today”she confides to ICI Normandie. “He was a valuable ambassador of Normandy”adds Sophie Gaugain.

In Calvados, the artist, known for his exceptional mastery of color, painted numerous landscapes. His most famous work“A Year in Normandy”a fresco created during confinement, traces the four seasons in his Augeron property.

“He used to tell me that he had settled in Normandy because he had fallen in love with the landscapes and that if the impressionists had given us the chance to be able to see all the blues of the sky and the Normandy sea”testifies Sophie Gaugain. “Well, he wanted to show us the thousand and one greens of our countryside.” David Hockney’s paintings painted in Normandy are exhibited around the world. The Center Pompidou in Paris notably dedicated two exhibitions to him, in 1999 and 2017, as well as the Vuitton Foundation in 2025.