David Hockney – My Yorkshire – Conversations With Marco Livingstone

Author: Hockney, David & Livingstone, Marco
Publisher: Enitharmon Press
Price: £225 including postage in the UK
Publication Date: 2011
Edition: First edition
Size: Oblong quarto
Binding: Original cloth-backed boards
Condition: Fine

Condition:

Published by Enitharmon Editions, London, UK, 2011. 1st edition. Original cloth-backed boards. Size: 32.7cm x 24.7cm. Pp. 84. ISBN: 9781907587139. Illustrated throughout in colour. A very fine copy indeed.

David Hockney And Yorkshire: A Brief Overview

Introduction

David Hockney’s engagement with Yorkshire represents one of the most significant phases of his late career. After decades associated with California and international modernism, his sustained return to the landscapes of his native county from the late 1990s onwards resulted in a body of work that is both deeply personal and formally innovative.

This Yorkshire period is not a retreat into nostalgia, but a radical rethinking of landscape painting in the context of contemporary vision and technology.

Biographical Context

Hockney was born in Bradford, and although his early career took him to London and Los Angeles, Yorkshire remained a formative influence.

His return was gradual:

• Late 1990s: increased time spent in Bridlington (East Yorkshire coast)
• Early 2000s: full artistic engagement with the surrounding countryside
• Establishment of a studio base in the region

This relocation coincided with a broader shift away from portraiture and photography back toward direct observation of landscape.

The Yorkshire Landscape as Subject

The Wolds and East Yorkshire

Hockney focused particularly on:

• The rolling chalk landscapes of the Yorkshire Wolds
• Country lanes such as Woldgate
• Hedgerows, fields, and wooded copses

These are not dramatic mountain landscapes like the Lake District, but subtle, cultivated terrains, shaped by centuries of agriculture.

Seasonal transformation

A defining feature of this work is the depiction of the same locations across:

• Spring blossom
• Summer density
• Autumn colour
• Winter bareness and snow

Rather than single “views”, Hockney presents landscape as temporal sequence, emphasising change and recurrence.

Major Works

The Bigger Trees Near Warter (2007)

One of the largest paintings ever produced in Britain, this work:

• Depicts a stand of trees in East Yorkshire
• Is composed from multiple canvases assembled into a unified whole
• Demonstrates Hockney’s interest in scale and immersive viewing

It marks a culmination of his return to large-scale painting.

Woldgate series

The repeated depiction of Woldgate (a rural road) becomes:

• A study in perspective
• A meditation on time and light
• A serial exploration of visual experience

These works echo Monet’s serial studies but are structurally more experimental.

Technique and Innovation

Multiple perspectives

Hockney rejects traditional single-point perspective, instead:

• Expanding spatial depth
• Allowing the viewer’s eye to move through the image
• Creating a more experiential sense of seeing

This approach reflects his long-standing critique of Renaissance perspective.

Use of colour

Yorkshire landscapes are rendered in:

• Intensified, often non-naturalistic colour
• Strong contrasts
• Clear, graphic forms

Colour becomes structural rather than merely descriptive.

Digital media

Hockney’s Yorkshire work includes extensive use of:

• iPad and iPhone drawings
• Digital printing

These tools allow rapid recording of fleeting effects, particularly:

• Sunrise
• Seasonal change
• Variations in light

Digital media are integrated seamlessly into his broader artistic practice.

Relationship to British Landscape Tradition

Hockney’s Yorkshire work engages with, but also departs from:

• J. M. W. Turner (light and atmosphere)
• John Constable (rural observation)
• Twentieth-century British landscape painting

Unlike earlier traditions, Hockney emphasises:

• Constructed vision rather than naturalistic illusion
• The act of looking over time
• The interplay between memory and perception

Themes

Seeing and perception

The Yorkshire landscapes are fundamentally about:

• How we see
• How vision unfolds over time
• The inadequacy of single-point perspective

Place and identity

Returning to Yorkshire is both:

• A personal reconnection with origin
• A reassertion of British landscape as a valid subject in contemporary art

Time and repetition

By painting the same locations repeatedly, Hockney:

• Emphasises cyclical change
• Undermines the idea of a fixed “view”
• Treats landscape as process rather than object

Exhibition and Reception

The Yorkshire works were widely exhibited, notably:

• Major exhibitions at the Royal Academy
• International touring shows

They were critically recognised as:

• A late-career renaissance
• A significant contribution to contemporary landscape painting

Concluding Assessment

David Hockney’s Yorkshire period represents a profound re-engagement with landscape, combining direct observation, serial structure, bold colour, and technological innovation. Far from being a nostalgic return to roots, it is a sustained investigation into perception, time, and place.

These works demonstrate that even in a long and varied career, Hockney continued to redefine both subject and method. Yorkshire, in his hands, becomes not merely a location, but a laboratory for exploring how we see the world and how that vision can be translated into art.

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