David Hockney: Bigger Trees Near Warter
February 12 2011 – June 12 2011
The largest painting David Hockney has ever created went on show in York Art Gallery, for the first time outside London.
Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photograpique 2007, measuring 12m by 4.5m, is made up of 50 smaller canvasses of a landscape near the East Yorkshire village of Warter.
Its arrival in York marks the start of Art in Yorkshire – supported by Tate, a year long celebration of the visual arts in 19 galleries throughout Yorkshire. Works from Tate’s Collection of historic, modern and contemporary art will be showcased through a compelling programme of exhibitions and events.
Nick Serota, Director, Tate, said: “It is wholly appropriate that Hockney’s remarkable work Bigger Trees Near Warter should be shown for the first time outside of London at York Art Gallery. Standing before Bigger Trees Near Warter, the viewer is overwhelmed by the beauty of the winter trees and the energy of the Yorkshire landscape. In this work he has deftly joined together the tradition of painting en plein air with digital technology on a monumental scale.”
Hockney’s painting was originally exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition, before the artist presented it to Tate. The painting is made up of fifty panels joined together to form a whole, with Hockney using a combination of traditional techniques and new technology to create the piece. The painting took six weeks to complete, with Hockney painting each individual canvas ‘en plein air’.
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