Why a seven-year-old photo of Joni Mitchell and David Hockney cheers us up every February
On Friday afternoon, Joni Mitchell’s official Facebook page shared again a photo that makes people of a certain range of ages and temperaments smile.
“A yearly return to this heartwarming moment at David Hockney’s solo exhibition at the LA Louver gallery,” says the caption of the photo, which Jacob Sousa snapped quickly on Feb. 13, 2019, when Mitchell came to take in Hockney’s show.
The photo has been a phenomenon several times over, starting from the moment the LA Louver gallery shared it on its Instagram feed seven years ago. It has been shared and re-shared many times, on various platforms, and it’s fitting that Mitchell’s official Facebook page celebrates the image every Feb. 13.
It’s a midwinter tonic, a bright spot in the dead of winter. It’s filled with vivid colours, portrays two living legends raging against the dying of the light, and is remarkably tender.
Hockney, now 88, came to California in 1964 and has continually returned to it as subject matter. Mitchell, now 82, also settled in California in the Sixties; one of her best-known songs is indeed called California.
After the first flurry of social media shares, Guy Trebay of The New York Times dug into some of the reasons (he landed on 13 different ones) to explain the massive interest in a spontaneously taken and unplanned photo. Among them is the fact that, at that moment in time, Mitchell had not been seen much in several years after suffering a brain aneurism and other health issues.
He also wrote:
- Because, despite the presence of the cane she uses since having learned again to walk, Ms. Mitchell appears radiant and robust.
- Because Mr. Hockney is so ruddy looking that you would never take him for a dedicated smoker or someone who’d had a stroke just seven years ago.
- Because Mr. Hockney is wonderfully attired in his singular and exuberant way: unstructured blue jacket, lime green cardigan, knit tie of alternating pink-and-red stripes, tweed flat cap and pink polka-dot pocket square.
- Because Ms. Mitchell is dressed in what looked like queen’s raiment: a navy blue and yellow fringed steam-stretch sweater from the designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae’s fall 2018 collection for Issey Miyake, a show one critic likened to “Dune” meets “Game of Thrones.”
- Because the two are immigrants, each of whom forged an early path to California — Ms. Mitchell from the cold reaches of the Saskatchewan province of Canada by way of Paris; Mr. Hockney from Yorkshire, England — exchanging worlds “too old and cold,” as she once wrote, for a coastal city filled with possibility, then as now.
Here again is a link to the piece; it’s a gift link, so there’s no paywall.
The photo also preceded a wonderful return to the fore for Mitchell. A succession of archival collections continues to this day; it included a 50th anniversary special edition of her album Blue, for which there is a consensus that it is one of the key pop recordings of all time, by anyone.
In 2022, seated but majestic, Mitchell made a surprise appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, accompanied by stellar musicians organized by Brandi Carlisle.
In 2024, Mitchell won a Grammy for her Newport performance — and brought out another lump-in-the-throat moment when she sang Both Sides Now there, too.
Hockney seems to never tire of producing new work. He has current exhibitions in five locations, and there is another one opening next month in London. In 2017, we felt fortunate to be able to see a sprawling retrospective exhibition of his work at the Tate Britain.
His sense of colour remains arresting, so full of pleasure.
What a delight it is to see the photo again, of him and Joni Mitchell, enjoying their moment. It’s inspiring.