David Hockney: A Bigger Picture
05.15.2012 - 09.30.2012
Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, David Hockney: A Bigger Picture is the first major exhibition held in Spain to celebrate the crucial role landscape plays in the career of this artist, considered the most important living British painter.
Bright landscapes inspired by his native county of Yorkshire form the core of this exhibition which, with Iberdrola’s sponsorship, brings together on the Museum’s second floor nearly 190 works—oil paintings, charcoals, iPad drawings, sketchbooks and digital videos—most of which have been created in the past eight years. This exhibition offers a unique vision into Hockney's creative world and demonstrates his enormous capacity to represent nature using different techniques, as well as revealing his attachment to the landscape of his youth.
Curators: Edith Devaney, Curator of Contemporary Projects at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Marco Livingstone, Independent Curator
The Exhibition
David Hockney
Ordinary Picture, 1964
Acrylic on canvas
182.9 x 182.9 cm
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates
David Hockney
Pearblossom Highway, 11-18 April 1986 #1
Photocollage
119.4 x 163.8 cm
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of David Hockney
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates
David Hockney
The Road across the Wolds, 1997
Oil on canvas
121.9 x 152.4 cm
Mrs Margaret Silver
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates
David Hockney
A Closer Winter Tunnel, February–March, 2006
Oil on six canvases
182.9 x 365.8 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
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
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
David Hockney
Winter Tunnel with Snow, March, 2006
Oil on canvas
91.4 x 121.9 cm
Courtesy of the artist
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
David Hockney
Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 and 29 November 2006
Oil on six canvases
182.9 x 365.8 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Courtesy of the artist
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
David Hockney
The Big Hawthorn, 2008
Oil on nine canvases
274.3 x 365.8 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Courtesy of the artist
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
David Hockney
Winter Timber, 2009
Oil on fifteen canvases
274.3 x 609.6 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Private collection
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Jonathan Wilkinson
David Hockney
The Sermon on the Mount II (After Claude), 2010
Oil on canvas
171.5 x 259.7 cm
Courtesy of the artist
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
David Hockney
Under the Trees, Bigger 2010–11
Oil on twenty canvases
365.8 x 609.6 cm (each 91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Courtesy of the artist
© David Hockney
Photo credit: Richard Schmidt
Artist
Hockney, David
Did you
know that...?
STAGE DESIGNS
Stage design is an important and less-known part of Hockney’s artistic output. He created his first opera design in 1975 for Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (1951)—see image of one of the original models (ink and photography on cardboard). Afterward, theater became a great influence on his art and aesthetic approach.
WATERCOLORS
In the early 1960s, David Hockney shifted his attention from oil to the water-based medium of acrylic, which he used for a considerable period of time as this newly developed paint allowed him to capture the quality of the light and the sunny environment of Los Angeles.
IPADS
David Hockney has always been radical in his use of unconventional technology to make art, from the Polaroid camera and fax machines to the iPhone in 2009, iPad in 2010, and high-definition DVR more recently; the iPad, in a sense, substituted his need for sketchbooks.