This video is an outtake from David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, an award-winning documentary by filmmaker Bruno Wollheim.
Watch the full film here: vimeo.com/onde...
Hockney is about to have an exhibition open of his own Yorkshire landscapes in LA, to coincide with the exhibition of ‘Constable's Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings’, nearby at The Huntington Art Museum in San Marino CA. He explains the connection, to make the art of landscape great again. For Constable in the early 19th century it was a battle to give the genre a status equal to History or Figure Painting; for Hockney it was a battle against the hegemony of Photography, which he contends cannot represent the spatial experience, or The Sublime.
Crucial to the development of David’s thinking - and ambition - was an exhibition of Thomas Moran at the National Gallery in Washington DC in 1977 and another in 2002 at Tate Britain American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880 which featured the massive panoramic canvases of the American West by Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. Of course, by then Hockney had already created three large masterworks of landscape of his own: Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio 1980, Pear Blossom Highway 1986 and A Closer Grand Canyon 1998.
See also DH11/80
Filmed over three years with unprecedented access, A Bigger Picture captures Britain’s most beloved painter at work. David Hockney’s return from California to paint the East Yorkshire landscape of his childhood - outside, in all weathers, through the seasons - culminates in the largest picture ever made outdoors. It’s an inspiring story of a painter in creative dialogue with nature and photography, and a revealing portrait of Britain’s most popular and celebrated artist.
“This wonderful film … will be of lasting importance for future generations who want to understand Hockney’s art.” Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4
“Bruno Wollheim’s portrait of this forthright magus is an unqualified, life-enhancing joy from start to finish.” - The Sunday Times
“This film may well be the best anyone will ever make about Hockney’s process.” - The Times, London.
“As gently hypnotic and fulfilling as one of Hockney’s own works.” - Time Out
“This impressive documentary is almost cinematic in its scope… both majestic and intimate” - The Observer
Watch the full documentary here: vimeo.com/2248...
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