The city of Bradford is honouring its most famous artist son, David Hockney, by opening a permanent gallery in Cartwright Hall today (7 July) dedicated to the veteran painter. The launch of the Hockney Gallery, which will house the artist’s early sketchbooks and family photography albums, marks his 80th birthday on Sunday (9 July).
The new space will house the largest collection of work dating from Hockney’s time as a student at Bradford School of Art (1953-57), before he moved to London in 1959. Early series of prints such as The Blue Guitar (1977) and A Rake’s Progress (1961-63) will also go on show.
Le Plongeur (1978), a large-scale piece made from coloured paper pulp, will be displayed alongside archive photos documenting how the images were made. IPad pictures made in Bridlington in 2010 are also included along with personal photo albums showing family snaps dating from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The documentary maker Bruno Wollheim will also unveil a new 20-minute film drawn from footage shot accompanying Hockney between 2003 and 2006. A spokesman for Hockney tells The Art Newspaper that the artist is currently in Los Angeles and does not intend to attend the gallery launch.
A retrospective of Hockney’s works that ran at Tate Britain earlier this year was seen by 478,082 visitors, making it the gallery’s most popular exhibition ever. The show opened at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in June (until 23 October).
