I've been reviewing my 2020 photos and came across this one that I didn't post at the time. It was taken in the entrance lobby of Salts Mill, before the pandemic lockdown closed the Mill and its shops and galleries. The painting on the left is well-known, I guess: David Hockney's colourful depiction of Salts Mill towering over the surrounding streets. A lot of artistic licence in it! But it's a memorable image and you often spy prints of it hanging in local houses, so a lot of people must like it. Hockney, as most of my readers know, was a Bradford lad and a friend of Jonathan Silver, the entrepreneur who rescued Salts Mill. The Mill has galleries devoted to the artist's work.
It was the other big, bold picture that caught my attention. It's called 'Mojave' by Ann Graves, depicting the week or so in the springtime, after winter rains, when the dry Mojave desert in California bursts into life with a riot of colourful blooms. Ann Graves (1941- 2017) and her husband David were friends of Hockney. She was one of his muses/models from the 1960s and David worked as an assistant to Hockney in the 1970s/80s. Hockney photographed their wedding.
It's interesting to find out the 'back story' of artworks.. It's not difficult to do these days, thanks to the internet. Indeed, I can spend many happy hours disappearing down rabbit holes into the web!
Quite a contrast between them.
ReplyDeleteGood to learn the back stories of the art you shared today, from pre-COVID times. The Hockney painting does pull one's eyes in to see how he's bent perspective for his own use. It creates a design which is pleasing rather than totally realistic, at least in my opinion. Thanks for sharing all the info on the artists...which somehow I never learned in all those art history classes!
ReplyDeleteI like both of these pieces!
ReplyDeleteI really like them, I'd hang the one up on the left I think.
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