Probably The Best Website In The World

The best website for Hockney devotees at any rate.

For anyone out there who has yet to visit Mr. Hockney's own site, I urge and encourage you to do so. It is full of the most useful and beautiful information.

http://www.hockneypictures.com/terms.php

If Only

If only I could get away form it all and travel to foriegn shores. Perhaps I'd go to Scandanavia and explore.

Mr.Hockneys current exhibition Me Draw On IPad at The LOUISIANA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART has been extended to the 4th of september.

If  like me you can't make it, have no fear for something very wonderful is going on that we can all access.

During the exhibition period, David Hockney has generously made five of his drawings available to the public. Each OR code gives access to one of Hockneys iPad images, which you then can download to your smartphone for free.
To scan a QR code you need to install a scanner app on your smartphone for example Scanlife.

Visit thier website and have a look at the beautiful images  at http://www.louisiana.dk/uk/Menu/Exhibitions/David+Hockney:+Me+Draw+On+iPad

David Hockney: Me Draw on iPad

8 April - 4 September 2011

Louisiana is an international museum with a considerable collection of modern art. The museum’s permanent collection includes more than 3000 works and is one of the largest in Scandinavia. It takes its point of departure in the period after 1945 including artists like Picasso, Giacometti, Dubuffet, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Rauschenberg, Henry Moore, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston, Morris Louis, Jorn, Baselitz, Polke, Kiefer, and Per Kirkeby.

Every year Louisiana offers 4-6 temporary exhibitions, presenting both great modernist artists and the latest international contemporary art in the series Louisiana Contemporary.

The above is taken directly from the museums website, which is excellent and can be read in English.

http://www.louisiana.dk/uk/Service+Menu+Left/Home

POETRY!

I did think of titling this post More Poetry Please - but I thought better of it.

For This is the most exciting Post.

Imagine if you will, a beautiful gallery filled with outstanding landscapes, a mysterious Constable, two wild William Kiddier's, a haunting Paul Nash hanging amongst scenes of natural wonders in oil, watercolour, pen and sepia. I am of course describing the Ferens Gallery 8 Landscape Exhibition.

Now, Imagine the gallery filled with talk and light and expectation! The Hockney Researchers and Volunteers have organised an evening of poetry inspired by Bigger Trees Near Warter. Local poets will share their Hockney and Nature inspired poems.

The evening will also offer the chance to view Mr. Hockney's masterpiece and listen to music composed especially for it.

Below is the press release!

BIGGER VERSE AT THE FERENS – HOCKNEY’S ‘BIGGER TREES’ INSPIRES POETRY EVENT

David Hockney’s ‘Bigger Trees Near Warter’, currently on display at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull, has inspired a group of Heritage Volunteers to organise a special poetry reading, as a means of engaging non-traditional audience groups. The Hull-based Art Gallery was selected as only one of three art galleries across Yorkshire to exhibit the famous painter’s biggest painting and part of the gallery’s success in attracting the painting was the strength of its volunteering activities, which the gallery has promoted in order to encourage people who normally don’t visit galleries to see the impressive work.

A Poetry reading has been instigated and organised by the Hockney Research Volunteer Group, part of the Heritage Volunteers, who give their time and expertise to support the city’s museums and art gallery. This group was formed to assist with the invigilation of the painting but also to organise and promote cultural activities to tie in with the exhibition.  The purpose of these activities is to bring the painting and the Ferens closer to new audiences using a variety of different forms of art.  As well as inviting established local poets to contribute their response to the painting, the Volunteers have also invited several public and voluntary arts organisations to make contributions from within their own communities.

The Hockney Research Volunteer Group meets weekly to plan special events and activities. These have included making a sound-recording at the Warter site to improve the experience of visually impaired visitors to the exhibition; talks and family learning activities, using the school holiday period effectively, a unique Blog created for the exhibition and a special poetry reading for local poets inspired by Hockney’s epic painting. 

Poetry organiser and volunteer, Christina Hamilton said:

‘It is part of our role as volunteers to think about how we can encourage people who may not normally come into the gallery to visit and enjoy Hockney’s work and everything the gallery has to offer. By using a different media, we have been able to engage through poetry, with non-traditional art gallery audiences and open up the gallery and in particular, Hockney’s ‘Bigger Trees’ to people who might not experience the painting otherwise’.

‘We have been supported by local poets, keen to read their own work at this special event, which celebrates the wealth of artistic talent in Hull and Yorkshire and showcases one of Yorkshire’s favourite painters in the fabulous Ferens Art Gallery. Poets including Alan Barrett, David Cooke, Ann Liles and Ian Parks have already agreed to take part. This is not a competition; it is a chance for anyone to express their personal poetic viewpoint of the painting’.

  

‘We are also hoping to play a piece of music written by Roger O’Donnell (The Cure) and inspired by Hockney’s painting. It promises to be a very interesting and thought-provoking evening for the senses and we hope that people who haven’t seen the painting yet and would like the chance to hear local poets read their work will come along. ’

The free event takes place on Friday 9 September at 6pm in the Ferens Art Gallery. Places are limited and must be booked in advance by ringing the gallery on 01482 613902.

For further information regarding the Poetry Reading, please contact Christina Hamilton at Christina@hamilton21.karoo.co.uk or Rachael Mather at rachaelmather@hotmail.co.uk

Since the exhibition of David Hockney’s ‘Bigger Trees Near Warter’ opened at the end of June, more than 38,000 people have visited the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.

‘Bigger Trees Near Warter’ is on display until 18 September, 2011 at the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull.

Roger O’Donnell’s music can be accessed at www.rogerodonnell.com/quietertrees.html

The Blog is available at: http://mrhockneyinhull.blogspot.com/

See also: www.hullcc.gov.uk/museums

http://art.yorkshire.com/exhibitions/david-hockney-bigger-trees-near-warter-ferens-gallery

The British Art Fair

The British Art Fair is fast approaching and even if you can't make it to London next month you can still view all the works online.

And what works they are

David Hockney (b. 1937) 'Paper Pools', signed lithograph, ed. of 1000. From Dominic Guerrini

Winifred Nicholson Oxford 1893 - 1981 Brampton Sea Treasures Signed, dated 1952 and inscribed with the title on the stretcher Oil on canvas: 60 x 76 cm. From Richard Green.

John Piper, 'Fawley', 1989, oil on canvas, 91 x 121.5 cms. From Beaux Arts.

Henry Moore (1898-1986), Working Model for Reclining Figure: Prop, 1976, Bronze, ed. of 9, 80.3 x 39.4 x 39.7 cms. From 0sborne Samuel.

Sir Jacob Epstein [1880-1959], George Bernard Shaw [full bust], 1934, bronze, ed.6, signed [rare]
From Keith Chapman.

There are literally hundreds of amazing artworks this year and The Best Of The Brits looks set to be a great event. Go to the link and enjoy.

http://www.britishartfair.co.uk/index.html

Mr. Hockney is represented of course with several works, to view them and more you can also go to the Dominic Guerrini website

http://www.dominicguerrini.co.uk/

When Celia Met David

When Celia met David...

I can't wait for the Celia Birtwell book! Shel was interviewed in 'Lula' Magazine by Celestine Cooney and was asked:

How did you meet David Hockney? Why do you think you ended up being the subject of many of his paintings?

"I met David in 1968 through a friend Peter Schlesinger. David was a Yorkshire lad, I was a Lancashire lady and we just clicked. I think we had similar family backgrounds, they were both quite eccentric. I find him very intelligent and very funny, I think he finds me funny too, so there is a mutual understanding."

This certainly echoes what she said in the Vogue interview quotes posted by NM! I loved the stories about his parents. Must be a Northern thing...

The link below takes you to Celia's brilliant website, and a competition to win tickets to her V&A talk and a signed copy of the book.

http://celiabirtwell.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=26238a744a27c0b7022ee568b&id=9b1abfa374&e=b89d676688

Post Author CM

Celia Birtwell's website is fantastic! Enter her world at http://www.celiabirtwell.com/enter-our-world/  really amazing.

The above illustration and photo of Celia and David is from the site.

Frankly, I can keep myself amused.

As threatened in a previous post, here is the first of the Vogue archives that feature Mr. Hockney. Titled Our Man in Malibu and written in the Nov 1993 issue by Georgina Howell.

A fellow Hockney volunteer and researcher drew my attention to her copy of a 2006 issue of Vogue featuring our man, and so I decided to trawl the archives online and found three entries, a nov 1990 issue that I dont have and this one, which I do!

One of my favourite covers of all time, Linda Evangelista shot by Nick Knight and promising that Glamour is back. How fitting for an Un Homme Un Style post.

The article is quite revealing and surprising, unfortunately not available to read online, but here are a few quotes that are particularly insightful and amusing...

"I lead a reasonably isolated life," he says, standing out in the garden, hands in pockets. His spectacles flash in the sunlight. "Frankly, I can keep myself amused."

"Today the only television that has any power is live, but I've even given up watching the news." He says news and action have parted company. "I mean, the Gulf War was all diagrams, all experts and no action. The LA riots were all action and no information - no diagrams. no experts!"

His ridicule of the Tate's buying policy under Norman Ried helped force a rethink on aquisitions. Writer Peter Webb tells the story of David Hockney accompanying curator Richard Morphet around the Tate Gallery. Hockney stopped to look at a work by David Tremlett, consisting of a plastic grid of cassettes. He indicated the ventilator he happened to be standing on at the time and asked, "Who did this, Richard?", to which Morphet responded, "You're terrible. At times, you're almost philistine."
"Tell me," Hockney insisted. "What's the difference?"
"That's art," said the curator, pointing to the cassettes, "because an artist did it."
"Anyone can say he's an artist," said Hockney. "My mother could say she's an artist, You're not going to exhibit her knitting."

There are also some revealing phycological insights into Mr. Hockney in the vogue article.

"His father was extraordinary," says fabric designer Celia Birtwell, a close friend and frequent model who comes from the same north of England grammar school background. "Recently, when I visited David's mother with him in Bridlington, we found copies of some of the letters his father wrote. One was to Izal, the lavatory paper manufacturer, congratulating them on their perforations." In a story Hockney likes to tell, he came back from school one day to find his father sitting in an armchair outside a telephone box. It turned out his father had advertised something he had to sell in the local paper, and had given the number of the call box.

There is, of course, more to david Hockney than the social icon and the brilliant performer. When Hockney was living in Powys Terrace, Nikos Stangos remembers the large room perpetually full of laughing friends while the painter  could often be found working behind  a closed door in the small room off to one side. "He is generous with his time and attention, but there is also a desperation and sadness to him which comes when he feels imposed upon. At low moments he feels used."

The article ends with,

An artist's work should be judged, not over the span of a few years, but over a lifetime. The book may be finished, but meanwhile the painter is groping for the next step. It is a lonely existence. It was lonely in eighteenth-century China, and it was lonely in Piccasso's Paris.
"Its fun in the studio, too. Oh yeah! However much you struggle, you enjoy it too. If there wasn't a pleasure principle in it you wouldn't be caught up in it at all." That's the way he sees it.

The book, of course, is That's The Way I See It and it is a great book! Available at the Ferens shop and online at amazon and various other places.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention CM! (Poor Mr. Tremlett)

Invisisble Landscapes

The landscape has inspired artists throughout time and has a special way to cast spells over all of us. Mr. Hockney talks wonderfully about the power of nature and the landscape, "nature, never, never let's you down" and many artists strive thier whole life to capture nature in the landscape and reveal something of its power and our relationship to it.

The photograph is by local artist and Hockney volunteer Dave Power, from his series This is Invisible.

A beautiful and thought provoking series. You can view more of this incredible work at  http://iamtheantihero.carbonmade.com/ 

"This Invisible is a photographic project that asks the viewer questions about mankinds' physical permanence upon the earth and in turn admires the beauty brought about in these special landscapes."

The David Hockney quote is from a great interview he gave a few years ago, a transcription of which can be read at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/hockney_transcript.shtml#top

Back To Warter

We once more went back to Warter and to the location of  Bigger Trees. Again, it was beautiful and this time bustling with agricultural activity. The purpose of our visit was to gather sounds. One of our projects is to provide a multi sensory experience of the artwork for the visually impaired.

I've been very lucky to be involved in the Ferens Multi Sensory Tour, which focusses on several iconic works in the permanent collection and uses sound, objects and description to enable meaningful access to works of art for those who have visual impairments and blindness. All the stories, obsessions, ideas, history and beauty infused into art should be available to everyone.

So to Warter we went and we listened to the wind, the birds, tractors, cyclists, kids playing and very kindly Clare Crooks from Radio Humberside recorded for us.

More on the project soon.

Celia

There is a new book on Celia Birtwell and it promises to be rather beautiful and interesting.

This will be the first book about the legendary designer and is written by Dominic Lutyens - the book will feature designs and sketches from Birtwell's 50-year career and drawings and paintings of Celia by Mr. Hockney.

Birtwell will be in conversation with Sonnet Stanfill at the V&A on On September 23.

Photograph and article extracts from British Vogue online http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/celia-birtwell-book---ossie-clark-and-hockney This is a great site and full of the most interesting information, more from the vogue archives coming soon...

For info and tickets on the V&A Conversation  go to http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/1236/