David Hockney on his exhibition with Van Gogh: ‘When you look at the world, there’s so much to see’

In the Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam, around the corner from the Van Gogh Museum, Britain’s greatest living artist is talking about his latest one-man show. At first I thought he’d probably exaggerated some colour, but now I don’t think so.” Sixty-four years later, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world’s largest collection of Van Gogh’s work, has had the bright idea of juxtaposing a large array of Hockney’s Yorkshire landscape paintings with a smaller selection of Van Gogh’s landscapes, painted in the 1880s in the south of France. “He was joyful when he painted – I know that, because that’s what he loved.” open image in gallery ‘Kilham to Langtoft II’, 27 July 2005, oil on canvas This exhibition also represents a kind of renaissance, for Hockney’s landscape paintings, like Van Gogh’s, were cut short by a tragic, self-inflicted death. “When you’re looking at the world, there’s so much to see.” open image in gallery ‘The Harvest’, Vincent van Gogh, June 1888 David Hockney was born in Bradford in 1937, the fourth of five children. “I can’t think of anything better than watching the spring happen in Normandy in 2019.” Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature is at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam until 26 May