Joseph gazing longingly at the southern California pool in A Bigger Splash by David Hockney.
Coinciding perfectly with wintertime, the Metropolitan Museum is hosting a major retrospective of the famed British artist David Hockney. The exhibition presents iconic works (including the one above) and key moments of his career from 1960 to the present in a wide range of media including painting, drawing, photography, and digital media. Hockney first visited Los Angeles in 1963, and moved there permanently in 1976, drawn to the relaxed pace of life. He said that "the climate is sunny, the people are less tense than in New York...When I arrived I had no idea if there was any kind of artistic life there and that was the least of my worries." Drawn to California's many outdoor pools, A Bigger Splash was painted between April and June 1967 during the period that Hockney taught at the University of California at Berkeley. The exhibit closes February 25, so get there soon. You'll need a nice memory of a sunny Southern California pool to get you through this winter, trust me.