Soooo jealous!! What I’ve missed most in last year is culture!.
I have instantly got tickets for two Parisian friends to go and be our eyes!
Thank you Christopher, that is much more to my taste. Beautiful…
Hockney’s work reminded me of walking down the school corridor on a parent’s evening! 
Yes, I follow your drift. I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about Hockney, esp since he left California. His water colours of Yorkshire are in the same vein as the Normandy ones.
However, he is a very interesting person to talk to - or on this occasion, listen to.
He was stuck in this position for about an hour while the photographer I was working with, as his assistant, fiddled with a 10" x 8" camera and the prototype of 10" x 8" Polaroid instant colour print film, along with a crew from Polaroid to get it all working.
I was feeling dreadful with flu, but my boss insisted I be there to supervise the operation of a make of electronic studio flash gear that was very rarely seen in London, being Swiss and ludicrously expensive.
“Just sit on a box and be there if we need you”.
So I spent an hour sitting on a box, exactly where Hockney is looking in Newman’s portrait, while he mused about painting, colour and photography [note the Polaroid camera on a tripod in the painting. He had a period of making collages from Poly prints.]
I do recall it was fascinating at the time but having raging flu I forgot everything he said.
But I still recall his humour and absence of any trace of “Me Hockney Famous Artist”.
That’s good to know.
Don’t get me wrong I love art, in fact my first topic on SF was on art, but we all have different tastes which is a good thing , I just prefer your take on Normandy. 
Yes, he is a good friend of my father’s, they were due to meet up in Paris last March, which obv didn’t happen, and it hasn’t been possible since either.