the big hawthorn
2008
oil on nine canvases, 274.3 x 365.8 cm overall
Image © David Hockney. All Rights Reserved.
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From: David Hockney - A Bigger Picture, UK Book.
20.01.12: painting details
Looking behind the creation of each painting in Hockney's world is almost as fascinating as the completed work. Here is no exception.
Each year, there is what the artist calls 'action week', which are three or four days in late May or early June when the hawthorn blossom makes its fleeting appearance. Hockney rises at dawn to catch the light when the blossom is at its best. He paints the hawthorn from different viewpoints from year to year. Each time he notices something new, something different.
The Big Hawthorn is another huge picture, a monumental blossom at the centre of nine canvases. The viewer is dwarfed by what he/she sees before them. The power, the powerful beauty of Nature, is inescapable and makes the viewer, well, this viewer, seem small in front of it.
Text: Paul Page, 2012
20.01.12: a bigger picture book & exhibition
David Hockney - A Bigger Picture, UK Book.
Accompanies the acclaimed 2012 Royal Academy Exhibition. Details: here. Details: exhibition.
Book Available: Amazon.co.uk
David Hockney Biography
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Image © David Hockney
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