Parker Cars Magazine: Issue 4

feature
ailing friend made me see the living aspect of the
landscape,” he told The Observer newspaper. “Some
days were just glorious, the colour was fantastic. I
can see colour. Other people don’t see it like me,
obviously.” The experience of that summer resulted
in a series of richly coloured landscape oil paintings.
Hockney permanently moved back to Bridlington
in 2005.
Large-scale and outdoors
Hockney developed a method for painting
outdoors onto multiple canvases, forming huge
single pictures. This culminated in 2007’s Bigger
Trees Near Warter which comprised 50 canvases
and measured 15 feet by 40 feet. He used digital
photography to observe the entire subject. But it
was already late winter by the time he had chosen
his subject – a copse of trees near the East Yorkshire
village of Warter. He found himself racing against the
oncoming spring to capture the trees in their leafless
winter state.
Death of his assistant
In 2013, Hockney’s assistant Dominic Elliott died
after drinking drain cleaner. He had been upset
at not being included in an official portrait of the
artist’s team. The incident deeply disturbed Hockney
and precipitated a move back to Los Angeles where
he still lives today.
Still grieving, Hockney produced a portrait of
another of his assistants. The work led to a whole
series of quickly painted portraits, many of which
were exhibited at the Royal Academy this past
summer.
David Hockney, Tate Britain, SW1P 4RG, Feb 9 to
May 29 2017, £19.50.
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