Royal Academy exhibition featuring 150 works by artist expected to attract huge numbers
The biggest ever UK exhibition of landscape paintings by a living British artist opens this weekend, with the Royal Academy of Arts bracing itself for large numbers wishing to view David Hockney's collection of his pictures of the Yorkshire countryside near his home in Bridlington.
The 150 works, many of them gigantic and most of them painted in the past five years, fill an entire exhibition floor at the RA's Piccadilly headquarters in central London.
The much-hyped exhibition, A Bigger Picture, runs from this Saturday until 9 April. It will subsequently tour to Bilbao, Spain, this summer and Cologne, Germany, next autumn.
Kathleen Soriano, the RA's director of exhibitions, said: "This is an incredibly important exhibition for us and public interest is great. We have handed over the gallery to the greatest living British artist, showing that the academy is about living art, full of passion and energy. The landscapes are beautiful and refreshing, and will attract all audiences, from connoisseurs to my 13-year-old daughter. David has produced huge amounts of work – he is both busy and productive."
The works on display cross several media: from oil paintings and watercolours to videos and sketches originally made on Hockney's iPad. Most are landscapes of the panoramic open country spaces of the east Yorkshire wolds, many of them views – virtually all unpeopled – of the same spots painted through the seasons of the year.
A huge painting entitled Felled Trees on Woldgate 2008 is accompanied by another, nearly identical, called More Felled Trees on Woldgate 2008.
A further seven paintings, each of six panels and all painted from the same viewing point, show trees in Woldgate wood at different times of the year through 2006. The same view of three trees in a landscape at Thixendale was painted during the four seasons of 2008.
An entire room at the exhibition is devoted to large paintings of hawthorn blossom in full spring bloom along local roads. The accompanying description states: "He has learned accurately to anticipate the arrival of hawthorn blossom in spring and to recognise its early signs of growth. He refers to the period as Action Week, indicating his mindfulness that spring, unlike winter and summer, is shortlived and must be painted with some urgency. He rises early to paint nature in all her wild exuberance … (the blossom) is as if a thick white cream had been poured over everything … just an intense visual pleasure."
Reassuringly, Hockney says: "It does not have to be Woldgate: your own garden will change as much."
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, Royal Academy 21 January – 9 April