David Hockney and Bigger Trees Near Water – The Era Of Enormous Landscapes

David Hockney – BBC Radio 4 – Front Row – June 15, 2007

One of the problems with being on the planet long enough is that sense of assuming all the people whose work you grew up with will be around forever – you run the risk of taking them for granted – you just assume there will always be something new to be had – something new to marvel at – something new to inform who you are in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe that’s true in the sense of Art, music, writing – examples of living proof those transformative experiences still have the power; years, decades, centuries from now. Forever fresh – forever vital.

But the actual person, the actual people the ones responsible for those examples have left us – gone before their time, or gone after a long and productive stay – but gone nonetheless.

Hearing of the passing of David Hockney at 88 was still a shock and it conjured up all kinds of “where were you when . . .?” thoughts on works you’ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of times.

In looking for something in the archive that could encapsulate Hockney’s iconic career, it was impossible finding any sort of representative retrospect that would cover all the aspects of his career and contributions in an hour or ten hours or two weeks worth.

So I whittled it down to one area; landscapes on the occasion of a showing that took place at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 2007.

In June 2007, Hockney’s largest painting, Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le Motif pour le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, which measures 15 by 40 feet (4.6 by 12.2 m), was hung in the Royal Academy‘s largest gallery in its annual Summer Exhibition. This work “is a monumental-scale view of a coppice in Hockney’s native Yorkshire, between Bridlington and York. It was painted on 50 individual canvases, mostly working in situ, over five weeks last winter.” In 2008, he donated it to Tate in London, saying: “I thought if I’m going to give something to the Tate I want to give them something really good. It’s going to be here for a while. I don’t want to give things I’m not too proud of … I thought this was a good painting because it’s of England … it seems like a good thing to do.” The painting was the subject of a BBC1 Imagine film documentary by Bruno Wollheim called David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (2009) which followed Hockney as he worked outdoors over the preceding two years.

This interview is from BBC Radio 4’s Front Row series as it was broadcast on June 15, 2007 – the time the Exhibition opened.

A small aspect of a long and celebrated career, but hopefully enough of a seed to get you exploring if you’re not already familiar.

A reminder that Art is the glue that holds us together – apply as necessary and often.