Razzle Dazzle 2 - Bigger Picture

David Hockney

1937 Born Bradford, West Yorkshire into a working class family
1948 Scholarship to Bradford Grammar School. Already knew he wanted to be an artist.
1953 Bradford School of Art
1957 Worked for 2 years in hospitals as a conscientious objector instead of conventional national service.
1959 Postgraduate course at the Royal College of Art, London
1962 Awarded Gold Medal for his year
1963 Moved to Los Angeles

Seeing some old works hanging alongside put the prolific new work into perspective, in particular a couple of dull water colours of Eccleshill, Bradford, and some oils from his first time in California. It's glorious to see the explosion of colour when Hockney moved there in 1963. We can only imagine what that kind of move meant to an artist raised in Bradford at a time when pea-soupers were still the norm and buildings were black with grime from coal fires.

Hockney came back to Yorkshire for 6 months when his great friend Jonathan Silver was dying. He painted his daily journey through Yorkshire to visit Jonathan using his new way of looking at the landscape. Yorkshire as we never saw it before.

Now he applies that same way of looking, matured by years of experiment, to East Yorkshire where he has lived in his mother's old house, ever since she died. These are exiting images, a mixture of surreal, abstract and landscape painting, vibrant, alive, and most of all, connecting with people in a way modern artists sometimes fail to do.

My favourites are the huge tree paintings, sometimes 20-30 canvasses joined, Woldgate and Thixendale through the seasons. Visually stunning but somehow an experience for more than the sense of sight. Evocative.

I was born and brought up in Bradford, some years after Hockney. My husband went to Bradford Grammar School as a Scholarship boy too, though they did not overlap. And later, studying accountancy, he went to Saturday morning classes taught by one of Hockney's brothers. A more spooky coincidence, several years ago while most of these paintings were evolving, my husband started a website called Bigger Picture. Not an uncommon phrase, perhaps, but small world and all that.

My husband's time at Bradford Grammar was sandwiched between Hockney and Jonathan Silver, who restored Salts Mill, friend and promoter of Hockney's work. The galleries at Salts Mill, Saltaire, West Yorkshire house permanent exhibitions of Hockney's work, and along with the diner, well worth a visit.

Another minor connection is that I was friendly with Jim Greenhalf, poet, author and journalist at the Bradford Telegraph and Argus [where Dad worked for 38 years] who wrote 'Salt and Silver', an account of the restoration of Salts Mill and Jonathan's relationship with Hockney. Whoever talked about six degrees of separation got it right in this case.

If you get the chance and are half interested, do go see a Bigger Picture.
Prepare to be dazzled.

Thank you all for good wishes on my 200th yesterday:)