Tributes to Hockney

I popped into Salts Mill the other day, just for a browse around. There were a number of lovely photos of the artist David Hockney, who died recently. As you'll know (at least if you've been paying attention!), he was a personal friend of the late Jonathan Silver.

When Jonathan bought Salts Mill in 1987, after it had closed as a textile mill and was in danger of dereliction, it was quite a gamble. It's easy to look at it now and accept as a matter of fact its artistic and commercial success, but that was by no means guaranteed. It was a stroke of genius to persuade Hockney, a Bradford-born lad, to lend some of his paintings to create the 1853 Gallery, and then to start buying some of his work. The mill now holds the biggest single collection of Hockney's art anywhere in the world.   

Hockney's death, though not unexpected I suppose at age 88, has been greeted with profound sadness locally. The tribute (below) from the owners and staff of Salts Mill conveys most eloquently what he means to us all. 

It is always wonderful to walk through the mill among all the vibrant and varied artworks that Hockney created, and was still creating more or less up to his death.

Every time I visit I see pictures that I don't remember seeing before, though the large painting that was David's homage to Salts Mill and Saltaire still takes pride of place in the mill's main entrance. 

RIP David

I’m saddened to hear of David Hockney’s death. (Perhaps not surprised given his well-known smoking habit, though one could have imagined he might have made his centenary, he was such a stubborn chap and such a lively mind.) 

Ironically, today, I was intending a post about Martin Parr, another great artist (photographer) who died in recent months. I’ll save that for another time. Just now I’ll use this space to say my own ‘thank you’ to David Hockney, for the pleasure his work has given me over the years, for his legacy to Bradford (his home city, where he attended Bradford Grammar School and Bradford’s art college) and for his championing of Salts Mill. He was a personal friend of the late Jonathan Silver, the mill’s rescuer and reinventor after the textile business closed. It’s in a large part thanks to the priceless Hockney works and exhibitions that Salts Mill holds that the mill - and Saltaire - are ‘on the map’ and draw visitors. Hockney turned down a knighthood in 1990. He always was a radical, a non-establishment guy, but I actually think it’s sad that he isn’t publicly ranked among our creative ‘Sir’s.

Ironically I’m away this week and don’t have access to my photos, so I shall have to try and work out how to illustrate this with a suitable image. Whether I manage that or not, I say: Rest in Peace David Hockney, paint heaven in all its glory. And thank you for your brilliant, curious, irreverent mind and all the beauty that flowed from your skilled hands through all the media you experimented with. You’ve greatly enriched my life and I shall always be grateful for the privilege of being able to see your artworks in our mill. 

1853 treasures

The 1853 Gallery, on the ground floor of Salts Mill, is a treasure filled with treasures. It sells wonderful books on art, photography, architecture... I could browse for hours! 

Its walls are filled with priceless paintings and sketches by David Hockney, a 'Bradford lad' and a friend of the late Jonathan Silver, the entrepreneur who saved the mill when it ceased to be a textile business in the 1980s.  

I've always rather liked the unfinished sketch of Hockney's muse, the textile designer Celia Birtwell. Behind it, a glimpse of the surrounding treasure that is Saltaire village - the tower of the Victoria Hall can just be seen through the window.

Alongside the paintings there's a superb collection of Burmantofts ceramics: art pottery produced between 1880 and 1904 by the Burmantofts Pottery in Leeds, which mostly made utilitarian ceramics for the construction industry. Much of the collection was a personal passion of Jonathan Silver. I wonder if the family (who still own and run the Mill) continue to collect pieces? I don't remember seeing the little table (below) before but perhaps I just never noticed it. I love the colours and glazes of the pottery. 

In the 1853 Gallery, you can always smell the fragrance of the white lilies that are placed in vases all around the gallery. (You can even smell them outside.) I think they may be a tribute in Jonathan's memory. He sadly died of cancer in 1997, aged only 47.  

So many treasures. 

Hockney paints the sky

As part of the City of Culture 2025, David Hockney's paintings were brought to life in a short but spectacular show featuring 600 illuminated drones above Saltaire. Painting the Sky was created by Skymagic, the Leeds-based drone light show pioneers. Roberts Park was packed with people who came along to see it. I'm afraid my photos aren't all that great, as I was just using my phone. (It was drizzling and I decided it was going to be too much effort to navigate the crowds and the dark with my camera and a tripod, plus I wasn't confident the photos would be all that much better!)

You can get the general idea anyway, and hopefully recognise most of the artworks. 'Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy' (1971) is one of Hockney's earlier paintings, depicting his friends, the fashion designers Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell and their cat. The two halves were shown separately so I've joined them up a bit here. 

'The Blue Guitar' is one of a series of twenty etchings Hockney made in 1976-77, inspired by a poem by Wallace Stevens, which references a Picasso work: 'The Old Guitarist'. 

There was a recreation of a picture of his dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie, whom he painted in the 1990s as a way of dealing with his grief over the loss of a friend. There was also a picture of one of the dogs that is used as the logo in Salts Diner, in Salts Mill on everything from plates to napkins to the T shirts worn by the staff. 

I've included a couple of short video clips here too, as they give more of a sense of how the drone light show played out. (I hope you can see them.) The first is one of Hockney's swimming pool paintings: Portrait of an Artist ( Pool with Two Figures) from 1972. 

The second is taken from an iPad video: 'Remember you cannot look at the sun or death for very long', which he made during lockdown in 2021.

 

Hockney and Mai

In perhaps an odd juxtaposition, Sir Joshua Reynolds' imposing 'Portrait of Mai' is currently being shown in the Hockney Gallery at Cartwright Hall, as part of Bradford UK City of Culture 2025. It is touring the country, having been 'saved for the nation' in 2023 in a joint venture by the National Portrait Gallery and the Getty Museum. Painted about 1776, it depicts a Polynesian man, Omai, who journeyed with Captain Cook and visited England, being much admired by London society at the time. He is painted in an arcadian scene, wearing flowing robes resembling ceremonial Tahitian dress worn by nobility and the priestly classes. The painting has quite a chequered history (see HERE), belonging to the Howards of Castle Howard for over 200 years. 

In the Hockney Gallery there is information about David Hockney's life and work, including some rather lovely sketches of Bradford scenes (above) that he made while he was a student at Bradford College of Art. There are also some colourful iPad drawings he did while living in Bridlington in the early 2000s. 

Hockney at the Media Museum

The main exhibition I wanted to see in Bradford was at the Science and Media Museum. It's an interesting building with five or six levels and a sweeping and dramatic glass foyer at the front. It was closed all last year for a revamp... but I couldn't really see a lot of difference from how it used to be! Thankfully it has now reopened, to coincide with the City of Culture.  

There's a large sculpture of Wallace and Gromit's arch enemy Feathers McGraw hanging in the entrance. (See also HERE). Given the success of the latest film from Aardman Animations, 'Vengeance Most Fowl', I think that will be enjoyed by some of the younger visitors. 

One of the galleries has a new exhibition of David Hockney's work, 'Pieced Together', which draws parallels between his current nine-camera-video installations (which I mentioned before, HERE) and his much earlier, photographic 'joiner' collages made in the 1980s. (An example is below, an image of Hockney's mother, in the rain, seated on a tombstone at Bolton Abbey.) The artworks are accompanied by various videos and interviews with Hockney, exploring concepts of time, space and perspective in art and photos and how we 'see' them. I found it very interesting, though I was rather disappointed that there were very few actual works on show - just a couple of 'joiners' and a more recent video installation of 'The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods'.

By the way, if you look back to my first photo, you will see I was intrigued by the effect of the angled glass, which in itself created almost a 'joiner' photo of the surrounding buildings. 

On leaving the museum, it was evident there'd just been a sharp rain shower, so the statue of novelist and playwright J B Priestley was gazing at a beautiful rainbow.  

'I mean, photography is alright if you don't mind looking at the world 

from the point of view of a paralysed Cyclops - for a split second. 

But that's not what it's like to live in the world.'

David Hockney

More Hockney

Alongside the flower pictures, there is a video installation 'Woldgate Woods, Winter 2010' that I find mesmerising. One of his 'Cubist movies', Hockney filmed it using a rig of nine video cameras atop a 4x4, driving slowly round the Yorkshire countryside. There is no sound, just the moving images, which are almost but not quite synchronised. They have slightly different white balances and very slightly varying focal lengths. The result is calming and strangely hypnotic. 

I might have bought a catalogue but they were £25. (Why always so expensive?) I did like this photo in it though. Always the Yorkshireman, there Hockney sits in his French kitchen, painting on his iPad, in his tweed jacket and flat cap! 

There's an interesting video showing the brushstrokes he made building up one of his water lily paintings. (The one shown in this post HERE.)

There are also a few more paintings, the two above reminiscent of the 'A Year in Normandie' frieze that was recently on show in the mill's roof space. The grid of iPad screens gives the impression of looking through a window. 

I felt so delighted to see this exhibition that I took a photo through the grid of the gallery window: my homage to Hockney. 

20 Flowers For 2025

There's a new Hockney exhibition just opened in Salts Mill. '20 Flowers For 2025 And Some Bigger Pictures' is a contribution of Bradford-born artist David Hockney, and Salts Mill, towards Bradford's City of Culture 2025. 

As exhibitions go, it's not one of his most amazing. (Little could top the previously displayed 'Arrival of Spring', for me at any rate.) It consists of twenty iPad drawings of flowers, plus a few other paintings made from his home in Normandy. Nevertheless, it's worth seeing - and where else in the world could I just walk into such an exhibition, on my doorstep, completely for free? I feel so fortunate. 

The image I like best is the one (above, with detail below) of Hockney looking at the flower paintings. It's a photograph but, such is Hockney's playful and curious nature, even in his late 80s, that he has shown himself seated twice in the image and the rest of it consists, effectively, of a collage of other photos. 

He says of it: 'This is photographic but it is in no way an ordinary photograph... Ironically, the only things not photographed in this picture are the flowers themselves. The objects on the floor are all photographed in 3D, one walks round the object and then the computer makes an image that can be turned any way you want. This is why I called them photographic drawings. You can place them anywhere in the picture, so I think it's a new kind of photography that avoids perspective. I am continuing with this research.' 

That's why I love this man's mind. From his fairly early photographic 'joiner' pictures to his use of an iPad for painting, he is continually thinking about and playing with concepts of time, space and perspective. Fascinating. 

Even though it was the opening day of the exhibition, there were quite a few visitors to the gallery. 

I enjoyed the broad view and then looking closely at the details of each picture - how he paints glass and how he has found at least twenty different ways to depict a checked tablecloth. 

Farewell to Normandie

After being on display in Salt's Mill's roof space for most of the past two years, the exhibition of David Hockney's huge artwork 'A Year in Normandie' closes today. I'm not sure whether it will be dismantled or 'mothballed' for opening again at some future date. I went along to bid farewell. It is really rather special. 

Made up of prints from 220 iPad pieces Hockney created in 2020, while he was spending the pandemic lockdown in Normandy, it records the changing seasons around his French garden. Influenced by Chinese scrolls and the Bayeux Tapestry, Hockney's intent is that the viewer will walk past it and experience in one picture a whole year in Normandy.  It's quite intriguing. I watched a short video about its creation. Not that I could hear it (no subtitles for the deaf, tch tch) but it showed Hockney out in his garden making sketches and ink drawings, then experimenting on his iPad. 

This section reminded me of a song that I was once fond of, by Harry Chapin, called 'Flowers are Red', about a child whose teachers tell him off for painting things the 'wrong' colours. Hockney thinks tree trunks are purple... Who am I to argue? 

I wonder what delights will come to Salts Mill next? They have some great exhibitions and, if it's Hockney you want to see, there is a large permanent collection of his work here. (He grew up in Bradford, went to art college here and was a friend of Jonathan Silver, who rescued the Mill from dereliction and developed it into the world class attraction that it now is.)

Not blasé

I'm certainly not blasé about living near to a World Heritage Site with an awesome, restored, Victorian mill full of priceless David Hockney prints and paintings, and beautiful Burmantofts pottery. Every time I go in, I see something I've not noticed before. This little vignette delighted me. The print is simply called 'Tall Tree', dated 1986 and labelled as a Hockney 'Home Made Print'. As for the pottery vase, it'd look super in my new flat! 😂  But I think they might miss it.

Hockney

David Hockney's joyful, 90m long frieze depicting 'A Year in Normandie' remains on display in the roof space at Salts Mill until October 29th this year. I've walked around it several times now and always notice some new detail. It really is delightful. There has been a series of programmes on Sky Arts recently, compilations of interviews with David Hockney and Melvyn Bragg. I found them very interesting; fascinating to hear Hockney's thoughts about art and the process of making art, and what he is experimenting with (even now in his 80s). The Normandie frieze consists of 220 iPad paintings he made of his current home, during the Covid lockdown, all blended into one long painting. He says he was inspired by both Chinese scrolls and the Bayeux Tapestry. Walking round the huge art work enables the viewer to experience the story of the whole year in one artwork. This is typical of the exploring that Hockney has done for many years around capturing the passage of time, and the effect of differing viewpoints, in one artwork. He tried this with his 'joiner photographs', the most famous of which is possibly his 'Pearblossom Highway' (1986). 

In the roof space there is also this lovely 'Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers'. (Not given to short titles, is he?) This is 'six iPad paintings, comprising a single work printed on two sheets of paper' and was made between 8 and 22 June 2021. 

Elsewhere in Salts Mill, Hockney's earlier iPad paintings 'The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate' are displayed. These were painted in Yorkshire in 2011, when he lived for a few years in Bridlington. They were later displayed in a blockbuster exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. I went to see them then and could hardly get close for the crowds. It's a huge privilege - and much nicer - to sit and reflect on them in Salts Mill's quiet space. 

In the same gallery, this video installation plays in a loop. It was filmed with nine separate cameras all recording on a rig on a Land Rover as it drove along the wintery lanes in North Yorkshire. Again, it explores both time and different viewpoints in one artwork. It is both beautiful and mesmerising to watch. It is one part of four similar video installations that make up 'The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods'. (See also HERE for a short clip of the video sequences.) 

 

Oblivious

It's a while since I went into Salts Mill and took any photos. Like the couple above, immersed in their own world, I can become oblivious to what's there. I try not to take it for granted. (People travel great distances to explore and enjoy the Mill and Saltaire.) After all, it really is a privilege to be surrounded by wonderful books, art materials and the hundreds of works of art by David Hockney displayed all over its walls.  

David Hockney is a Bradford lad, possibly the best known living artist in the world and a great friend of the late Jonathan Silver, who rescued the mill when the textile works closed. The 1853 Gallery (shown in these photos) has a permanent collection of his work, with his other exhibitions - 'The Arrival of Spring' and 'A Year in Normandie' - on other floors.  

It's somewhere I feel very peaceful and 'at home' - and, as I say, I do feel privileged to have it all on my doorstep.