David Hockney – A Bigger Picture – The Catalogue Of The Exhibition – 2012

Author: Hockney, David
Publisher: The Royal Academy
Price: £145 including postage in the UK
Publication Date: 2012
Edition: First edition
Size: Large quarto
Condition: Fine in fine dustwrapper

Condition:

The hardback catalogue of the major exhibition held at The Royal Academy. Illustrated throughout in colour. A fine copy in fine dustwrapper.

David Hockney – A Bigger Picture: A Brief Overview

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, held at the Royal Academy of Arts from 21 January to 9 April 2012, was one of the most significant exhibitions of David Hockney’s later career. It presented a large and coherent body of work centred on the Yorkshire landscape, alongside digital works and multi-screen video installations.

The exhibition marked a culmination of over a decade of sustained engagement with landscape, consolidating Hockney’s exploration of scale, perception, time, and the experience of seeing.

Context and Development

From Yorkshire to international recognition

Following his return to East Yorkshire in the early 2000s, Hockney had produced an extensive series of landscape works. A Bigger Picture brought these together on an unprecedented scale, transforming what had begun as a localised investigation into a major international statement on contemporary painting.

Artistic intention

Hockney’s central concern was to:

• Move beyond photographic ways of seeing
• Reassert painting as a primary means of representing experience
• Explore how vision unfolds over time

The exhibition title itself signals this ambition: not simply larger works, but a broader conception of pictorial space.

Key Works and Installations

Large-scale paintings

The exhibition featured numerous monumental works, including:

• Multi-canvas landscapes of the Yorkshire Wolds
• Seasonal studies of trees, hedgerows, and lanes
• Extended panoramic compositions

These works require the viewer to move physically, reinforcing Hockney’s interest in embodied perception.

The Bigger Trees Near Warter (2007)

Although painted earlier, this work was a focal point:

• Composed of 50 canvases
• One of the largest paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy
• A defining statement of Hockney’s multi-panel method

It exemplifies his attempt to expand visual experience beyond a single viewpoint.

Woldgate series

Repeated depictions of Woldgate across different seasons form a central thread:

• Spring blossom
• Summer foliage
• Autumn colour
• Winter snow

These works demonstrate Hockney’s commitment to serial observation and temporal change.

Digital drawings (iPad and iPhone)

A major innovation in the exhibition was the inclusion of:

• iPad and iPhone drawings
• Rapidly executed studies of sunrise, trees, and interiors

These works show:

• Immediate response to changing light
• Continuity with traditional drawing
• Integration of digital technology into fine art practice

Multi-screen video installations

Notably:

• “The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods”

This installation uses multiple synchronised screens to depict:

• Seasonal change
• Movement through landscape
• A cinematic extension of Hockney’s pictorial concerns

It reinforces the idea that no single image can capture lived experience.

Formal Characteristics

Expanded perspective

Hockney rejects Renaissance single-point perspective in favour of:

• Multiple viewpoints
• Shifting spatial relationships
• Compositions that unfold across the surface

Colour and structure

Colour is:

• Intensified and often non-naturalistic
• Used to organise space rather than mimic appearance
• Responsive to seasonal variation

Drawing and clarity

Despite scale and colour, the works remain grounded in:

• Strong linear structure
• Clear articulation of forms
• Direct observation

Themes

Time and change

A central theme is the passage of time:

• Daily changes in light
• Seasonal cycles
• Repetition of motif

Perception and experience

Hockney argues that:

• Seeing is an active, temporal process
• Photography captures only a fraction of visual experience
• Painting can represent how we actually see

The everyday landscape

The Yorkshire Wolds—modest, cultivated landscapes—are treated as:

• Sites of sustained attention
• Vehicles for exploring universal visual questions

Exhibition Design

At the Royal Academy of Arts, the exhibition was carefully structured to:

• Allow large works to be seen at appropriate distance
• Present series in sequence
• Integrate painting, drawing, and video

The result was an immersive environment, encouraging movement and prolonged viewing.

Critical Reception and Significance

The exhibition was widely acclaimed as:

• A major late-career achievement
• A reaffirmation of painting’s relevance
• A demonstration of Hockney’s continued innovation

It attracted large audiences and significantly shaped public perception of Hockney’s later work.

Place within Hockney’s Oeuvre

A Bigger Picture represents:

• The culmination of his Yorkshire landscape period
• A synthesis of traditional and digital media
• A mature articulation of his theories of perception

It builds on earlier exhibitions (e.g. The East Yorkshire Landscape, 2007) and anticipates later projects involving digital and immersive media.

Concluding Assessment

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture (Royal Academy, 2012) stands as one of the most important exhibitions of early twenty-first-century British art. By combining large-scale painting, digital drawing, and video installation, it redefines the possibilities of landscape representation.

Its enduring importance lies in demonstrating that painting, far from obsolete, remains uniquely capable of conveying time, movement, and the complexity of human perception.

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