Please get a head start! Prior to entry, read the exhibition texts and help us avoid congestion in the galleries. Hockney – Van Gogh The Joy of Nature The British painter David Hockney is one of the best- known artists in the world. Over the course of his 60-year career, he has created an impressive range of work, from his swimming-pool paintings in the 1960s to portraits and still lifes. This exhibition focuses on the landscapes that Hockney created in Yorkshire, in the north of England, between 2004 and 2013. They demonstrate Hockney’s constant exploration of different techniques—oil paintings, watercolors, charcoal and iPad drawings, sketchbooks, and films. For the first time in the United States, these works are on display together with a number of landscapes by Vincent van Gogh. Hockney has always been an admirer of Van Gogh’s work, and although separate in time and space, the two artists have much in common. Both show a deep connection with nature in their work. They view the landscape with fresh eyes and capture what they see through brilliant color. Their works express a desire to depict the natural world in all of its beauty and variety. David Hockney (born 1937) Born in the industrial town Bradford, West Yorkshire, in the north of England, in 1937, David Hockney came to public attention while still a student at the Royal College of Art, London, which he attended from 1959 to 1962. Drawn to the light of California, he settled in Los Angeles in 1964. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the artist moved back and forth between Los Angeles, London, and Paris. During the 1970s and 1980s, he produced many of his celebrated theater designs, principally for the opera, while continuing to make portraits and landscapes in different media. Hockney made frequent short visits to Yorkshire in the 1990s to visit his mother, who died in 1999. There, he rediscovered the landscapes of his youth, which have been a principal theme in his work from about 2004 to the present. Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) The son of a Protestant pastor, Vincent van Gogh was born in Zundert, in the Netherlands, in 1853. After working for an art dealer in the Netherlands, London, and Paris, he turned to religion and briefly became a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. In 1880 he decided to become an artist and was largely self-taught. From then on, he devoted himself fervently to his art. After two years in Paris, from 1886 to 1888, where he came into contact with the artistic avant-garde, he moved to Arles in the South of France in search of light and color. There, he suffered his first psychotic episode and in 1889 admitted himself to an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He spent the last few months of his life in northern France, where he died from a self-inflicted gunshot in 1890. During his short 10-year career, he produced an astonishing body of paintings and drawings. µ˙ Introduction The Intimate Landscape When Hockney returned to Yorkshire in 2004, he was inspired by the light, which is completely different from the light in California. It changes constantly so that the landscape always looks different. “To see another light is a very good thing I think,” he remarked, explaining that he wanted, “to get the excitement of the landscape back. I went painting outdoors, just to find a new kind of language.” This experience encouraged him to look closely and to record the changes of light and color on the canvas, which make even the most ordinary places in nature interesting to him. In this respect, he is like Van Gogh, who also saw the beauty of the ordinary landscape: “I’ve done two drawings of that flat landscape in which there was nothing but the infinite, eternity.” Vincent van Gogh David Hockney David Hockney David Hockney Dutch, 1853–1890 English, born 1937 English, born 1937 English, born 1937 Field with Irises near Kilham to Langtoft II, Woldgate Vista, Wheat Field off Arles, May 1888 July 27, 2005 27 July 2005 Woldgate, 2006 Oil on canvas Oil on canvas Oil on canvas Oil on canvas Van Gogh Museum, Collection of the artist Collection of the artist Collection of the artist Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh This work by Hockney has The Wolds is a wide area Foundation) a number of similarities of unspoiled agricultural to Van Gogh’s Field land that stretches Van Gogh described this with Irises near Arles (on between the city of York painting to his brother display in this room). Both and the seaside town Theo: “A meadow full of artists love the contrast of of Bridlington where very yellow buttercups, blue and yellow to capture Hockney had a house and a ditch with iris plants vivid light—on a brilliant studio. He has called it with green leaves, with May day in Van Gogh’s “the least changed bit of purple flowers, the town painting, and in sweltering England that I know.” He in the background, some heat in Hockney’s high- first came to know the grey willow trees—a summer harvest scene. area when he was about strip of blue sky. A The thick strokes that 15 and spent the summers little town surrounded Hockney has used to paint collecting corn on a local by countryside entirely the movement of the farm. “Around Bridlington, covered in yellow and waving grass also appear I was painting the land, purple flowers.” It is an to have been inspired by land that I myself had example of the artist’s Van Gogh. This is one of worked,” he has said. “I had intense looking: he the things that Hockney dwelt in those fields, so absorbs every blade of really admires about Van that out there, seeing, for grass, yet the composition Gogh’s work: “His pictures me, necessarily became is beautifully organized as are full of movement.” steeped in memory.” a whole. The band of irises holds the foreground while the field stretches away to the buildings of Arles on the horizon. µ˙ The Intimate Landscape David Hockney Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh English, born 1937 Dutch, 1853–1890 Dutch, 1853–1890 Midsummer: East Yorkshire, 2004 View of Arles, May 1888 The Rocks, 1888 36 watercolors on paper Reed pen, ink, and wash Oil on canvas Collection The David Hockney Foundation over graphite on paper The Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Mrs. Murray S. Houston This series of watercolors, which Hockney considers Danforth, 42.212A John A. and Audrey Jones a single work, was the first result of his renewed Lent by Museum of Art, Beck Collection, gift of acquaintance with the Yorkshire landscape. In different Rhode Island School of Audrey Jones Beck, 74.139 views of this peaceful, agricultural scenery, he recorded Design, Providence everything that caught his eye, from harvest scenes to Van Gogh made this empty roads, experimenting with a wide range of dots, This drawing is a painting of craggy rocks stripes, and spots of color. Hockney’s admiration for preparatory study for and a tree at Montmajour, the way in which Van Gogh varied his use of pencil and the painting Field with a few miles north of the brush marks was an important factor in encouraging Irises near Arles (1888), city of Arles where he him to find his own new methods. displayed nearby. Van was living. Painting out of Gogh drew it using a doors, he often struggled pen cut from a reed that with the fierce wind, was probably growing in the mistral, that blows the meadow. With this through southern France. simple handmade tool he Particularly striking in produced a remarkably this painting is the speed varied and expressive and energy with which range of dots and strokes, Van Gogh laid down his the vigorous mark- unmixed colors. He thus David Hockney making that Hockney so achieves in painting the David Hockney English, born 1937 admires in his work. In the same graphic quality as English, born 1937 Early July Tunnel, 2006 foreground, Van Gogh his drawings made with Woldgate, 24 November Oil on 2 canvases used an ink-laden pen to pens cut from reeds. 2005 Collection of the artist emphasize the dark petals Hockney has often spoken of the irises. of his admiration for Van Oil on canvas Gogh’s exceptional gift for Collection of the artist This farm track near the village of Kilham in capturing the variegated textures of nature. Hockney returned to easel East Yorkshire is one of painting in March 2005, Hockney’s favorite places. following several years of He calls it “the tunnel” because of the way it is painting East Yorkshire David Hockney solely in watercolor. enclosed by trees. This is especially true in summer, English, born 1937 Invigorated by the far Sledmere to Malton, greater possibilities of as in this view in which the 3 August 2005 oil painting, he set up his richly painted trees erupt Oil on canvas easel outdoors and sought with lush green foliage, a direct representation of creating walls along the Collection of the artist the scene before him. In sides of the track. As with this view, he captures vivid the other favored places autumn colors on a that he painted again country lane. and again, Hockney is fascinated by capturing the seasonal changes of color µ˙ and light. The Intimate Landscape Trees Trees had a special resonance for Van Gogh, and in numerous letters he expressed his belief in their spiritual and anthropomorphic qualities.