David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture at Royal Academy of Arts on artrepublic.com

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 RA: 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.

OPENING HOURS: Daily: 10.00 – 18.00, Fri: 10.00 – 22.00

Image Credits:

David Hockney , The Road Across the Wolds, 1997, Oil on canvas, 121 x 152 cm, Private Collection , Copyright David Hockney , Photo credit: Steve Oliver

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

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 , The Big Hawthorne, 2008 , Oil on 9 canvases , 275.5 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