Bigger Trees Near Warter is David Hockney’s largest painting so far, a stunning 15x40 foot landscape, made up of 50 canvases. It was first displayed in 2007 at the Royal Academy (where his new exhibition is to be in 2012) and later presented to Tate, along with two full-size reproductions. Now it’s on loan as part of a year-long exhibition: Art in Yorkshire.
David Hockney's Early Career
Hockney is very much a Yorkshire man. Born in Bradford, on 9 July 1937, he was one of five children; his parents were mother Laura and father Kenneth. His talent for art soon became evident – after Bradford Grammar School, he attended Bradford College of Art, then the painting school of the Royal College in London. His future was assured.
Painting in oils, Hockney was one of the first of the better known artists to try out the new acrylics. His work from that time has the vibrancy and colour we’ve come to expect from the medium. The work also reflects his location. After several early visits to the US, the Yorkshire artist picked up his easel and moved to California. Although he returned to England regularly, particularly at Christmas, this became his home for the next few decades.
Hockney and Photography
Hockney was fascinated with photography, first taking Polaroid snaps then moving on to photocollage, where he took a number of shots of a single ‘view’. These he arranged in a composite image. His exploration of collage began almost by accident: a reaction to his dislike of the wide angle lens and the distortion it produced. In exploring collage, he found a whole new focus for his art. Collage was also used in a practical way in the creation of Bigger Trees Near Warter.
Return to Yorkshire
Despite the contrast in place and weather, Hockney never lost touch with Yorkshire. Pulled back by a friend’s illness, he ventured into painting colourful landscapes. The friend was Jonathan Silver. Silver, also from Bradford, was a talented entrepreneur who redeveloped Salts Mill and made it home to Hockney’s work.
“He had always said 'Why not come and paint Yorkshire?' So I did...” (David Hockney, 2009)
When Silver became ill, Hockney visited him, taking with him the pictures of Yorkshire he’d just painted. One of these paintings, The Road to York through Sledmere, depicts the route Hockney took. Silver died in 1997.
Several years later, Hockney was painting Yorkshire again. This time he chose watercolour, a new medium for him. Painted on the spot from inside his car, much of this work is softer, subtle, though still colourful, the plants and shrubs in fine detail. When Hockney later returned to oils, he took the lessons he’s learned with him.
Large Landscapes
“Almost all of his landscapes were spotted from the car, roads and tracks feature over and over.” So notes film maker Bruno Wollheim, who went on a three-year journey with Hockney, exploring his work on location in Yorkshire. (David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, 2009). Hockney returned to the same places, in art and in life. He painted one lane, which he calls The Tunnel, seven times in the course of a year.
Through this work he traced the seasons, learnt about nature and how to represent it. He observed his perceptions change over time. He was also inspired to further work – the potential of painting large landscapes. From this, and his subsequent work on Woldgate Woods (nine paintings, each made up of six canvases) Bigger Trees was born.
Bigger Trees Near Water
Bigger Trees is quite something. Not only because of its composite nature or vastness of scale, but because of the way he uses colour to transform the landscape. At the time Hockney paints it, that landscape is bleak. Bruno Wollheim films the trees. They have line and form but they’re also stark. Hockney, however, transforms that starkness into something special. In the documentary Hockney acknowledges this, the pleasure he gets in taking something ordinary and making it different. The trees in question are no longer there, which makes his achievement all the more remarkable.
The painting is something of a technical marvel, prepared and produced in six short weeks. Throughout these weeks, David Hockney was challenged by time. Spring was coming and with it the leaves. He needed to finish the painting first.
Photography, technology made Bigger Trees possible. His assistant, Jean-Pierre, photographed the canvases, piece by piece, adding each one to a montage of the whole. It enabled Hockney to step back, look at his work from a larger perspective, something he couldn’t do while painting. He also spent time just staring at the view.
Stand before the completed work. The vastness of this view is evident.
Art in Yorkshire
The original location of Bigger Trees Near Warter is between York and Driffield, near the Yorkshire village of Warter. Along with a number of other works, the painting is part of Art in Yorkshire, a year-long celebration of the visual arts in 19 galleries, supported by Tate.
After several months in York Art Gallery, Bigger Trees moved to the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull, and will be in Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, from 1 October until early March 2012.
With its return to Yorkshire, and particularly to Bradford, David Hockney’s work, and some might say, Hockney himself, has finally come home.
David Hockney Exhibition
Hockney, like his picture, has not been standing still. An exhibition, David Hockney: A Bigger Picture will be launched at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on 21 January 2012 and run until 9 April 2012.
The show will feature huge digitally-inspired landscapes of Yorkshire and a selection of his paintings and drawings spanning 50 years.
The exhibition will also include films of Yorkshire made using multiple cameras.
Sources
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, produced, directed, filmed and written by Bruno Wollheim, 2009 [DVD]
York Art Gallery, David Hockney: Bigger Trees Near Warter [leaflet]
Further Information
David Hockney [authorised website]
Ellie Stevenson - Ellie writes on history, travel, careers & the arts. Her novel, Ship of Haunts (http://tinyurl.com/cyryp2m) is on Amazon as an ebook.
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