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David Hockney. Winter Timber, 2009
Oil on 15 canvases 274 x 609.6 cm Private Collection Copyright David Hockney Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson

THE ROYAL Academy of Arts presents the first major exhibition in the UK to showcase David Hockney’s landscape work. Vivid

paintings inspired by Yorkshire landscape, many large in scale and created specifically for the exhibition, will be shown

alongside related drawings and films. Through a selection of works spanning fifty years, this new body of work will be placed in the

context of Hockney’s extended exploration of and fascination with landscape.

Highlights will include three groups of new work made since 2005, when Hockney returned to live in Bridlington, showing an

intense observation of his surroundings in a variety of media. The exhibition will reveal the artist’s emotional engagement with

the landscape he knew in his youth, as he examines on a daily basis the changes in the seasons, the cycle of growth and variations

in light conditions. The exhibition will take the visitor on a journey through Hockney’s world.

The exhibition will address the various approaches that David Hockney has taken towards the depiction of landscape throughout

his career. Past works from national and international collections will include Rocky Mountains and Tired Indians, 1965 (Acrylic on

Canvas), Garrowby Hill, 1998, (Oil on Canvas) and the ambitious (Oil on 60 Canvases) A Closer Grand Canyon, 1998. David

Hockney: A Bigger Picture will also highlight the artist’s vast knowledge and research of the old masters and their techniques.

Hockney’s involvement with the depiction of space is traced in this exhibition from the 1960s, through his photocollages of the

1980s and the Grand Canyon paintings of the late 1990s, to the recent paintings of East Yorkshire, many of which have been

made en plein air. He has always embraced new technologies; recently he has used the iPhone and iPad as tools for making art.

A number of iPad drawings and a series of new films produced using eighteen cameras will be displayed on multiple screens,

providing a spellbinding visual experience.

Born in Bradford in 1937, David Hockney attended Bradford School of Art before studying at the Royal College of Art from 1959

to 1962. Hockney’s stellar reputation was established while he was still a student; his work was featured in the exhibition Young

Contemporaries, which heralded the birth of British Pop Art. He visited Los Angeles in the early 1960s and settled there soon after.

He is closely associated with southern California and has produced a large body of work there over many decades. David Hockney

was elected a Royal Academician in 1991.

ORGANISATION

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. The exhibition has been curated by the independent curator

Marco Livingstone and Edith Devaney, the Royal Academy of Arts.

CATALOGUE

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. A number of essays, including an introduction

by Marco Livingstone will explore the artist’s engagement with landscape painting in the context of Hockney’s illustrious career.

Writers as notable as Margaret Drabble, Tim Barringer, Martin Gayford, Xavier Salomon and David Hockney himself address the

artist’s place in the landscape tradition, his recent video works and his delight in new technologies.

DAVID HOCKNEY: A BIGGER PICTURE
Main Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, London
21 January - 9 April 2012

David Hockney. Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 & 29 November 2006, 2006
Oil on 6 canvases 182 x 366 cm Courtesy of the Artist Copyright David Hockney Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

David Hockney. A Closer Winter Tunnel, February - March, 2006
Oil on 6 canvases 182 x 365 cm Collection Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased with funds provided by Geoff and Vicki Ainsworth, the Florence and William Crosby Bequest and the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation 2007 Copyright David Hockney / Collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Photo credit: Richard Schmidt