국립현대미술관

As part of our program of exchanges and collaborations with prestigious international museums,the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea proudly presents David Hockney: Bigger Trees Near Warter (September 3, 2013 - February 28, 2014), featuring a major work from the collection of Tate, the mecca of British contemporary art. That work is David Hockney's colossal multi-canvas painting Bigger Trees Near Warter or/Ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique. Hockney is one of the world's most beloved and acclaimed contemporary artists, not only in the UK, but throughout the world, and this monumental work, created in 2007 and housed at Tate since 2008, epitomizes his latest artistic tendencies to the utmost degree.

Given the wide range of activities Hockney has excelled at in his long and distinguished career, it is equally accurate to call him a painter, printmaker, photographer or stage designer. He is perhaps the most popular and accomplished British artist of the 20th century who has remained active in the 21st century. Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire in England in 1937, Hockney studied at the Bradford School of Art from 1953 to 1957, with a traditional training in life drawing. At that time, he typically painted figure studies, portraits, and urban landscapes. From 1959 to 1962, he attended the Royal College of Art, London. By the 1960s, although still a student, Hockney and his work were beginning to receive international acclaim, thanks to his uncanny ability to capture intensely private subjects on his canvas.

Starting in 1964, Hockney began regularly visiting and spending much of his time in California, and his subject matter and style underwent drastic changes. He became fascinated with Los Angeles and Hollywood, and the idyllic, sensuous lifestyle of fit young men living out their carefree fantasies in a bright, sunny world filled with palm trees and swimming pools. After moving to L.A., he developed a new primary motif of sharp, vivid scenes of objects and people, brightly lit by the glaring sunshine. In order to heighten the slick surface and brilliant colors of his works, he switched from oil paints to acrylics. In addition, he added images from magazines and his own photos of California life to his paintings.

The reality we inhabit, including the infinite variety of nature, is impossible to depict through a single perspective, so in the 1980s, Hockney began experimenting with photo collage, layering and combining multiple snapshots. By invoking multiple perspectives, Hockney's photo collages allow him to capture the eternal flow of time and space, and rearrange them into a single integrated image.

After having lived in L.A. for more than 30 years, actively working in various fields and media, his interest eventually shifted back to the area where he grew up. By the early 2000s, he had become fascinated with the seasonal changes and breathtaking landscapes of his homeland. Hockney returned to Yorkshire, and found a place to stay in Bridlington and began painting the countryside of Yorkshire.
At first, Hockney used watercolors for his Yorkshire landscapes, before switching to oil paints. He also painted in the open air, like Claude Monet or John Constable in the 19th century, for a direct, up-close view of the landscapes. These remarkable landscapes reached their pinnacle with Bigger Trees Near Warter.

At 4.5 meters high by 12 meters wide, Bigger Trees Near Warter is the largest of Hockney's recent works, occupying a total of 50 canvases. The painting shows a small copse of trees near Warter in the west of Bridlington, representing the exact type of serene British countryside that enraptured Hockney upon his return to Yorkshire. The leaves on the trees are just beginning to sprout, heralding the arrival of spring. In the dead center of the composition is a huge platanus tree with a wide spread of branches that meander across many canvases. The tall trees occupy the foreground of the painting, along with several narcissus flowers in full bloom, with a pinkish stand of shrubs in the background. In the lower left corner, we see the curve of an open road extending to the background, while the right side of the painting features two houses that look to be occupied by people. The upper part of the painting is filled with the sprawling network of the trees' entangled branches. Due to the overwhelming size of the painting, anyone who approaches it feels as if they are stepping into an actual forest. Viewers find themselves immersed in Hockney's "infinite variety of nature."

Due to its size and complicated production technique, it took Hockney about six weeks to complete the painting. First, he made a preliminary sketch outside, in front of the actual scene, and then he partitioned the sketch into grids. Next, he began producing the actual canvases stage by stage, working "en plein air" ("in the open air") like the Impressionists or artists of the Barbizon School, thereby achieving a tangible sense of directness and spontaneity. Of course, he could only paint so much at a time, and it was impossible for him to assemble the canvases outdoors. So after he finished each panel, he photographed it and arranged it like a mosaic in his computer, thereby allowing him to continually check the progress of the entire composition, even though his studio was only large enough to accommodate up to ten canvases at a time.

By combining the traditional method of painting a real scene from nature ("sur le motif") in the open air ("en plein air") with the contemporary technology of digital photography, he was seeking to create an entirely new type of artwork.

For his "bigger pictures", Hockney has earnestly ventured here and there to capture the small villages of Yorkshire. But the goal of his exploration goes beyond the simple desire to create a detailed description of the village landscape; he is seeking to delineate the infinite flux of nature, while simultaneously illuminating our ways of perceiving scenes and objects. After he settled in Bridlington and began painting trees, leaves, and grass, Hockney said that he began to see things more clearly. Indeed, Hockney's art and his entire life have been based on the act of looking at something for a long time, with such great intent and enthusiasm that he is sometimes able to perceive a clear, undistorted view of its essence. As he continues to pursue bigger and better pictures, he shares this gift with us, revealing the possibility of a vision that is utterly new and different.