It might seem a perfect match: the French capital – any mention of which inspires images of Seine-adjacent cafes engulfed by a nicotine haze – and one of the world’s foremost advocates of smoking, David Hockney.
But despite the artist famously championing the habit he has enjoyed since 1954, a photograph of the 87-year-old holding a cigarette has been enough to put him at odds with authorities in the capital of the nation famous for Gauloises and Gitanes cigarettes.
Next week, Paris will host the largest exhibition of Hockney’s career, curated by the legendary Sir Norman Rosenthal at the Fondation Louis Vuitton.
The exhibition, at the Frank Gehry-designed building in the Bois de Boulogne, will showcase nearly 400 of Hockney’s works over 11 rooms spanning his seven-decade career.
But as the artist prepares for his blockbuster show, citizens travelling on the Paris Metro may be unaware of the significant exhibition taking place in the city.
In a development Hockney described as “complete madness”, lawyers for the Paris transport network have contacted Hockney to inform him that a photograph showing him sitting alongside a new self-portrait cannot be used to advertise the show.
The Parisian transport authorities have taken issue with the fact that Hockney is holding a cigarette in the photograph – but have no objection to the fact that the painting he is holding also depicts him smoking.
The painting is titled Play within a Play within a Play and Me with a Cigarette.
Hockney told The Independent: “The bossiness of those on charge of our lives knows no limits. To hear from a lawyer from the Metro banning an image is bad enough but for them to cite a difference between a photograph and a painting seems, to me, complete madness.
“They only object to the photograph even though I am smoking also in the painting I am holding! I am used to the interfering bossiness of people stopping people making their own choices but this is petty. Art has always been a path to free expression and this is a dismal.”
It is far from the first time that Hockney has faced opposition to his beloved habit, however, with the famed anti-smoking advocate’s father – a 1955 portrait of whom is included in Hockney’s upcoming Paris show – staunchly opposed to the practice.
But for Hockney, the act of smoking is firmly entwined in his work and approach to art.
“He’s 87. He has smoked, I don’t know, maybe 100 cigarettes a day and he still smokes. His lungs are not in a good way, and he accepts that fact,” Rosenthal told The Independent’s editor-in-chief Geordie Greig in a recent interview discussing the upcoming exhibition.
“For him, smoking is a symbol of freedom, to end bossiness. He doesn’t like being told on the packet some awful scare warning. He is very conscious of his physical fragility, but his mind is as clear as is his memory.”
In further remarks following the row with Parisian transport authorities, Rosenthal said: “Madness reigns. To have censorship of this kind with a poster promoting one of the greatest exhibitions of a living artist for a generation is beyond comprehension. Paris is a city of freedom and revolution wrapped into its history – this flies in the face of that.
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“This does not make sense. But at least the show is brilliant – the biggest art show ever of Hockney, Britain’s greatest painter.”
The Independent has described the upcoming show as “a spectacular, no-expense-spared, destination event for all art lovers”.
Rosenthal said: “He is the Picasso of our times, and when I say that, people laugh at me, as Picasso was the archetypal artist of the 20th century. But David Hockney is also an incredibly popular artist whose work changes how we see things. When there is a Picasso show at the Tate, there are queues around the block; the same with David. Both really looked, and showed what they saw, and brought joy.”
The exhibition opens on 9 April and is due to run until 31 August.
