Hockney

Bigger Trees near Warter

~Painted in oil on 50 separate canvasses and then pieced together, Bigger Trees Near Warter measures 15ft by 40ft and takes up the entire wall of a room at York’s Art Gallery. He painted it from life over six weeks, out in the cold of the East Yorkshire spring, on separate canvases, using a computer so he did not lose sight of the overall picture. It was pretty cold at times, he admits. “But the people in the house (in the picture) kept bringing me out cups of tea.” East Yorkshire continues to inspire him. Which is less than he can say for the UK’s anti-smoking policy. What do you think of York?, a hapless tourism bureau representative asked him. “I don’t come into York very often for the single reason that there is nowhere I can sit down and have a cigarette,” he said.~ (The Press, York News)