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Those in 2006 and 2016 contain references to his artwork about the Yorkshire landscape. I will never ever forget his major exhibition of paintings of the Yorkshire landscape at the Royal Academy of Art called - which I will never ever forget
Below this I've also listed links to some of the tributes in the media. What you're getting today is the pre-drafted. It's probable some better tributes will emerge at the weekend
I've seen no mention of risk to fine art in the context of the horrendous
fires in Los Angeles, California - so decided to see what I could find.
It seems to me there are four main risks
The Art Galleries housing fine art (eg Getty Museum; Los Angeles Museum of
Art)
The Security Archives holding art bought as an investment
The Archives of individual artists with homes in the area - such as David Hockney
The homes of very rich people who buy art - I mourn the loss of the art...
This is a resume of what I can find out so far.
Art Galleries - appear OK
I remember back in 2019, during the last really bad wildfires near Los
Angeles, being extremely impressed with the precautions that the Getty Museum
had taken in relation to risks from potential natural disasters.
Fires are marked by a flickering fire motif North: Hurst Fire Central:
Sunset Fire West: Pacific Palisades Fire East: Eaton Fire
It looks as if most of the main galleries (eg Los Angeles County Museum of
Art) are all in built up areas which are more unlikely to wildfire - although
who can tell given the extreme high winds carrying fiery embers all over the
city
West of Pacific Palisades the fire seems to be burning its way along Malibu
down to the coast.
Crop of Landseer's Laying down the Law (or Trial by Jury)
Whether you are a dog fan or not, it's a very interesting exhibition for a variety of reasons. Here are some of them:
the paintings in the show are exclusively portraits of dogs - no humans allowed!
some of the portraits are extremely impressive - on any level
artists included in the show include some very well known names - including some you may find surprising
the exhibition has an excellent narrative in terms of themes which tell the story of dog portraits over time
it's very well presented with good labelling
you get to see a well known artist trying to draw a dog - who isn't always co-operating!
Oddly, this is an exhibition which had been planned for some time - and then had to be postponed due to the Pandemic. What happened next is
the Wallace Collection decided to publish the catalogue anyway (see below)
a huge number of people became very new owners of dogs!
I fully expect this exhibition to be very popular and attract a lot of visitors from both old and new fans of dogs - particularly during the school holidays. I recommend all those who specialise in dog portraits to see an upsurge in interest - and they'd better go and see it to see what has prompted a commission!
General consensus seems to be it's well worth a visit which I would endorse
★★★★★ 'A treat for art-lovers and dog-lovers alike' – The Telegraph
★★★★ 'Charming' – The Evening Standard
About the Artists
I'd heard of most of the artists. They include:
Famous painters of animals
George Stubbs (1724 - 1806) - he's best known as a painter of horses - but he's a brilliant painter of dogs too and demonstrates an excellent understanding of their anatomy. He's also a painter of dogs renowned for their bloodline.
Stubbs’s animal portraits were family records intended for personal consumption and not for great public rooms.
George Stubbs (1724-1806) Ringwood, a Brocklesby Foxhound (1792) Oil on canvas, 100 x 126 cm Private Collection
Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) - a very well known painter of animals - about whom I learned something new - his use of allegory in his paintings of groups of dogs. For example, Landseer's painting Laying Down The Law (1840) satirises the legal profession through anthropomorphism. It shows a group of dogs, with a poodle symbolising the Lord Chancellor. This is one of the most celebrated dog paintings of the 19th century. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840
Edwin Landseer Laying Down the Law or Trial by Jury one of the most popular paintings of the 19th century
In the picture Landseer uses the individual characters of the breeds of dogs to satirise various members of the legal profession. The white poodle, with the similarity of its long ears to a legal wig, parodies the pomposity of a judge.
The painting was recognised at the time as a satire on the Court of Chancery, set up to deal with common law problems such as contested wills. The endless delays in the court exhausted the finances of the litigants while enriching its lawyers, an issue memorably taken up by Charles Dickens in Bleak House.
I've been to every David Hockney exhibition in London for many years - and
reviewed many of them over the last two decades - but I will NOT be going to
the
David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) lightshow xtravaganza at the Lightroom at Kings Cross.
First, because I've seen virtually all the original artwork first
hand
Second because I'm NOT a fan of huge immersive "experiences"; and
Third, although I'm OK with a dark room and a video playing during an
exhibition:
and I always watch those all the way through
and I loved Hockney's videos of changing seasons in the Yorkshire
Wolds.
But I'm not a teenager....
and I don't want to spoil my memories of "the real thing".
However if you want to get a taste of what it looks like and what other
people think see below.
This is a video of some of the 50 minute experience which I found on
Facebook (Yorkshire Post)
The Reviews of David Hockney: Bigger and Closer
Seems like I'm not alone in NOT wanting a sensory overload in a
crowded room.... I've not seen so many 2 star reviews of anybody for
quite a while! (If you want to see my reviews of his 'real exhibitions - see the
end)
The shorthand conclusion seems to me to be that if this were to be
the last show of his work in his lifetime - this would be a major
disappointment.
Two star reviews
Gigantic projections of the painter’s work fill entire walls in this
immersive audiovisual extravaganza – but there is no real art to catch
the memory or move the soul The Guardian
there’s too much that disappoints and irritates. You don’t really get
a feel for much of the best of his work. There are none of the
marvellous paintings from the very early 1960s, the exquisite drawings
of the 1970s. There’s limited art history, too, so there’s no
explanation as to why so much of what we’re looking at resembles the
work of Picasso. Neither do you get a feel for the materiality of the
media he extols; somehow the luscious beauty of paint, its very
stuffness, gets entirely lost when blown up this big. Evening Standard
I've written about David Hockney on a number of occasions on this blog. You
can READ my posts BELOW - they're organised backwards by years. Plus see
images of a lot of his artwork in proper exhibitions!
Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 & 29 November 2006, 2006 by David
Hockney Oil on 6 canvases, 182 x 366 cm Courtesy of the
Artist | Copyright David Hockney | Photo credit: Richard
Schmidt
15th January 2012 - Who's made a mark this week?
This has a lot of references to the publicity overdrive for the A Bigger
Picture exhibition at the RA and includes references to interesting
articles
The difference about this new exhibition is it contains no drawings or paintings and yet it is all about drawing and painting and the processes Hockney uses and has used to create his art.
Using large-scale projection in a remarkable new space, David Hockney takes us on a personal journey through sixty years of his art. Lightroom’s vast walls and revolutionary sound system enable us to experience the world through Hockney’s eyes. His life-long fascination with the possibilities of new media is given vibrant expression in a show that invites us to look more closely, more truly and more joyously.
It features:
the creation of a virtual reality using immersive audio and visual techniques to guide visitors into Hockney’s world
a commentary by Hockney
a specially composed score by American composer Nico Muhly
six themed chapters
“I’m usually drawing or painting, it’s all I want to do now"
There are six main topics which are examined in this exhibition / experience which reflect his many and various interests and projects over the last 60 years or more.
how he experiments with perspective
how he uses photography as a way of ‘drawing with a camera’
how he records the passing of time using:
polaroid collages of spending time with people and
the joy of spring (on his iPad) in the Yorkshire Wolds
why paint is the only medium to properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon
driving up his audio-visual Wagner Drive into the San Gabriel Mountains
an opera which includes animated re-creations of his stage designs
VIEW an interview with David Hockney about this exhibition on the BBC website.
The BBC's Katie Razzall spoke with the 85-year-old as he put the finishing touches to his show at its new venue, Lightroom, in London's Kings Cross.
There's a huge team which has been working on this three year project - and you can find the credits on the webpage.
Nearest Station: King’s Cross St. Pancras (Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan, Northern, Piccadilly, Northern line; National and International rail).
Tickets: £25 during the day; more expensive in the evening
discounts for groups
can be booked in advance - and some dates and times already have low availability (for those who like to have seen the "must see" show before everybody else)
pre-booked tickets can be exchanged for a different time slot of a different date or a credit note
ALL TICKETS ARE E-TICKETS AND EMAILED TO YOU
About The Lightroom
Lightroom is located in King’s Cross on Lewis Cubitt Square, adjacent to Coal Drops Yard and Central St Martin’s. It was designed by Haworth Tompkins as a sister space to the award-winning Bridge Theatre. Along with a generous Foyer and gift shop, the space also contains a bar and seating area run by St John.
The presentation features recent iPad paintings and a suite of landscape prints made from original ink on paper drawings. This new body of work highlights Hockney’s singular sense of line and form and his longstanding commitment to exploring perspective as mediated by technology.
Hockney in Normandy
Gray Gallery, New York (22 February 2021 - 19 March 2021)
a commentary on Hockney's continued prolific output and his continued use of a wide range of media - including technology - to draw and paint
It reflects the intimate interior spaces of his Normandy home "La Grande Cour" and its scenic surroundings.
In 2019, while familiarizing himself with the surroundings of his studio in Normandy—a seventeenth-century building with thick timber, red shingles, a reflecting pond, and plenty of blooming brush—Hockney set out with ink and concertina sketchbooks which would result in a series of works on paper depicting the idyllic countryside that surrounded him. Drawing the viewer into an amble through his gardens, Hockney in Normandy presents the suite of prints produced from those paintings on paper. Gray Gallery
"We do not look at the world from a distance; we are in it, and that’s how we feel… I tend to like the thought that I’m in the world. I don’t want just to look through keyholes." David Hockney
Hockney has always been inspired by great artists - notably Picasso. There is a sense in this exhibition that he's now examining the work of Monet who was the first great artist to feature Normandy in his paintings.
POSTSCRIPT
Yesterday's post has been updated with the details of the new book Spring Cannot be Cancelled by David Hockney and Martin Gayford - which will be published by Thames and Hudson on 25 March 2021. My copy is already on order!
Spring Cannot be Cancelled by David Hockney and Martin Gayford will be
published by Thames and Hudson on 25 March 2021. (The link above goes to Amazon UK - my copy is already on order!)
This is
a new book of conversations and correspondence between David Hockney and his long-time friend and collaborator Martin Gayford, in which the artist reflects upon life and art as he self-isolates in rural France.
Hockney moved to Normandy after he became 80.
when Covid-19 struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old farmhouse where the artist had set up a studio a year before, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.
The book is illustrated with images of Spring drawn and painted on his iPad. Many who viewed his major exhibition at the RA in 2012 (see my post Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture) will remember how much Hockney said he exalted in the arrival of Spring and loved to paint the foamy blossom on the Hawthorn bushes in in the East Yorkshire Wolds west of Bridlington where he lived at the time 'on location".
This time we'll see what he makes of Normandy!
They Can't Cancel Spring
.....is also the name of the Spring Exhibition of the Royal Watercolour
Society. See They Can't Cancel Spring
on the RWS website
This opens this evening - with a virtual evening reception on
Instagram....
The National Portrait Gallery is now closed for three years - until at least Spring 2023.
However there is some GOOD NEWS - SEE BELOW! - concerning:
Inspiring People Project
Collaborations with regional museums and galleries on future displays of key works
The Really Good News re.
David Hockney exhibition
BP Portrait Award
No more portraits on view at NPG Gallery for 3 years
It was always intended that the Gallery would close for its ambitious rebuilding project at the end of June 2020. So the announcement yesterday that the Gallery will not now be reopening for the rest of June came as no surprised - but means no more portraits for three years!
My concern right now is how the pandemic will affect the length of the building project.
It might start on time - and it may not.
It might take the original planned length of time - but it may not
In addition, my career experience (of major building projects taking three years) is that if it's a big project on a major site with major access issues then the project very often slips and is often not finished by the target date. That's not me being negative - that's just me relaying my experience of such projects - and I've known a few! (I'm also wondering whether the cut through from Cass Arts to the back of the National Gallery will remain open for the duration)
So be aware and prepare for the fact it MAY be more than three years before we can visit the National Portrait Gallery again
Inspiring People Project
When we do we'll be entering via a different entrance - located on the north side of the building and looking across a more spacious area and up Charing Cross Road.
The new entrance looking north up Charing Cross Road
direction of approach to new entrance to the National Portrait Gallery
You can see more about the building project on the NPG website - see Inspiring People. It will be biggest ever development since the building in St Martin’s Place opened in 1896.
From 1 March (2019), the colossal works of David Hockney will be on display in the Netherlands. For the first time, this spectacular exhibition offers an extensive and colourful exploration of the common ground between the work of Vincent van Gogh and David Hockney.
So sad that nobody thought it might be a good idea to repeat it in the UK!
This is an essay about the two painters Hockney - Van Gogh Two Painters, One Love. The juxtapositions of two paintings - one by each of them - as you work your way through is fascinating.
compare and contrast paintings of landscapes by Van Gogh and Hockney
BELOW is a video of Hockney commenting on the works and words of Van Gogh - and his own work.
He's the first great colourist
He saw more than other people. He saw space very clearly
Do read this review of the exhibition Hockney-Van Gogh exhibition is ‘a tame, though colourful, bit of fluff’ for an example of art critic who needs a stern talking to. Turns out he's held some pretty influential positions - but not in relation to anything like the paintings produced by Van Gogh or Hockney! [UPDATE: Turns out he's journalist who now adds a middle initial T into his articles because he's not the same man as the one with had all the positions with galleries!]
This is MY Review: David Hockney RA - A Bigger Picture - about the humongous exhibition of landscape drawings and paintings and film that Hockney had at the Royal Academy in 2012
The NPG last week announced that they would be staging the first major exhibition devoted to David Hockney’s drawings in over twenty years.
The exhibition will run 27 February – 28 June 2020.
I remember extremely clearly visiting the last exhibition of his drawings in London. 'David Hockney - A Drawing Retrospective'at the Royal Academy of Arts (Nov. 1995 - Jan. 1996) - and indeed still have the catalogue prominent in my bookshelves. It had a big impact on me and the regard I have for the use of coloured pencils to make drawings as fine art.
The exhibition 'David Hockney - A Drawing Retrospective', an exhibition of his drawings that I visited at the Royal Academy of Arts (Nov. 1995 - Jan. 1996), included very many of the pencil drawings of his family, friends and lovers. One of the reasons I like Hockney is because he has such a high regard for drawing apparently derived from his early training in Bradford. I gather he went through a phase of drawing according to the principles of American Abstract Expressionism at the Royal College of Art - drawings which represented feelings - but gave that up as a barren place to be. Anyway, he opened the Summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art this year and placed an emphasis on drawing as having fundamental importance in the world of art - as related in the BBC online interview with him "Taking Art back to the basics"
What's the Hockney exhibition at the NPG about?
Hockney is recognised as one of the master draughtsmen of our times and a champion of the medium. NPG
The exhibition will focus on
Hockney as a draughtsman from the 1950s to now
include 150 works from public and private collections across the world - and his own collection - with five main groups of drawings
self portraits over time
his depictions of his family and close friends
his muse, Celia Birtwell;
his mother, Laura Hockney; and
his friends - the curator, Gregory Evans and master printer, Maurice Payne.
In doing so, it will seek to trace the trajectory of his drawing practice over a period of five decades.
...it will examine not only how drawing is fundamental to the artist’s distinctive way of observing the world around him, but also how it has often been a testing ground for ideas and modes of expression later played out in his paintings.
The exhibition will also include some previously unseen work - new portraits of some of the sitters and drawings which have previously never been shared in public!
I'm a big David Hockney fan and can activate a mental video in my head of most of his past exhibitions by just thinking about the title of the exhibition and which gallery it was at. I can even remember which drawing or painting I spent ages staring at! I'm a particular fan of his drawings and even contacted the website to find out how to get a hold of copy of his facsimile sketchbook as seen at the last Hockney Portraits exhibition at the NPG in 2006.
"What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing; you wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought"
David Hockney / David Hockney Portraits - from the 2006 NPG exhibition
Hopefully we'll see more facsimile sketchbooks this time round?
Westminster Abbey has a new stained glass window designed by David Hockney RA- and the artist has added a new but traditional method of making art to his already eclectic portfolio of methods for creating art.
The window was commissioned to celebrate the reign of Her Majesty The Queen and was unveiled this week.
The new window is located in the Abbey’s north transept, which was previously just plain glass. It will in future be known formally as 'The Queen's Window'.
It's located in an Abbey that was founded in 960AD and has been the church in which the monarch is crowned since 1066. It is also the final resting place of 17 monarchs. It's a very special place for new public art.
The Queens Window - a new stained glass window in a building which
This post is about the process used to produce it and finishes with a video of David Hockney speaking about his very first stained glass window and possibly his very last artwork involving a tree.
About David Hockney
The reason for commissioning David Hockney was essentially that
he has been one of the most influential artists of The Queen's reign
his contribution has been recognised to date with an Order of Merit and as a Companion of Honour
he has a reputation as an artist who works with a =wide range of media and has always been prepared to try new media - or, as in this case, a very traditional method of portraying a visual image
This is his first work in stained glass
It must feel like a tremendous honour not only to be given the opportunity of celebrating the life of the Queen but also to be able to do so in a building where the artwork will last for centuries.
About the Commission
The artists's brief to provide something symbolic or representational of the subject, rather than a heraldic or figurative design, and for it to be recognisable as his work.
Hockney's response was to develop an image which reflects the The Queen's well known deep affection and connection to the countryside and her identity as a countrywoman.
He designed a country scene, set within his beloved Yorkshire. It features one of his favourite trees at the point in the year that he finds it most attractive - when the hawthorn blossom bursts forth in frothy clouds. He regards that as the celebratory aspect - akin to champagne bubbles!
Unsurprisingly, especially as the design was intended to be representative of his work, it also uses his distinct and vivid colour palette of yellow, red, blue, pink, orange and greens which he has used in the past for paintings of spring in the Yorkshire Wolds.
About the making of the window
Although David Hockney designed the window, its making was not his responsibility.
Barley Studio - a leading stained glass studio of over forty years based in York (which has a rather large Minster with rather a lot of stained glass!) - were commissioned to create the window using traditional techniques
The stained glass artists and craftspeople worked with David Hockney to translate his vision for the window into a reality in stained glass.
The first task was to get the precise measurements of the window so as to create stencils of the different parts of the window. This was done in May 2017 - and I'm guessing they were at the top of some scaffolding or in a cherry picker for quite a lot of the time.
Barley Studio staff - Keith Marley and Helen Whittaker - take precise measurements
The next stage involved creating the different sections of the window using lead and stained glass matching the palette determined by Hockney.
Helen Whitaker works on the window at the Barley Studio
When all parts of the window had been made they then needed to be assembled within the window void so as to create the stained glass window. Needless to say this is a job requiring some experience and expertise!
The installation of the Queen's Window
The stained glass window is a piece of art - and as with every piece of art created by Hockney it contains the artist's signature.
David Hockney's signature
Below is a video of David Hockney speaking about the whole process.
The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, said:
I’m very pleased that David Hockney accepted my invitation to design this window which is a celebration of the reign of Her Majesty The Queen. What he has produced is directly accessible with wonderful colours. It is a country scene to honour a woman who loves her country.
Dedication of the Window
The window will be dedicated formally by the Dean in the presence of the artist, his family, friends and invited guests on Tuesday 2nd October at 11:30am.
More about David Hockney
I've written about David Hockney on a number of occasions on this blog. You can READ my posts BELOW - they're organised backwards by years.
Those in 2006 and 2016 contain references to his artwork about the Yorkshire landscape - including the major exhibition he had at the Royal Academy of Art - which I will never ever forget
15th January 2012 - Who's made a mark this week? This has a lot of references to the publicity overdrive for the A Bigger Picture exhibition at the RA and includes references to interesting articles
