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Hockney's Gift to the Tate Britain

by Zoe Strimpel
Wed, 26 Mar 2008

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Patriotic spirit has led David Hockney to donate his largest painting to date, "Bigger Trees Near Warter," to Tate Britain. "I felt a duty and as an Englishman I wanted to give something to Tate Britain," he was reported as saying in the Times of London. "There are two galleries in the world I have enormous affinity for — the Los Angeles County Museum, and I've given it work, and the Tate." The museum owns already owns 108 pieces by Mr. Hockney, though only seven are paintings.

This work went on view to the public for the first time at the Royal Academy last year, taking up the whole back wall of its main gallery. It is indeed exquisite. First, its size — 40 feet by 15 feet — arrests you. Then, despite its enormousness, its delicacy — the whole is made of 50 canvases almost seamlessly combined, each one digitally mapped out by Hockney and his assistant, then painted over. And the scene is somehow delicate too, hinting at delights or sorrows unknown and unseen, perhaps behind the sinewy copse of trees and away from the country road depicted here (the picture refers to East Riding, Yorkshire, where Mr. Hockney now lives).

"Bigger Trees" at the Tate will be hung alongside two photos, one of each half of the painting, to illustrate that the whole can be appreciated as two parts.

In 2004, the Tate's director, Nicolas Serota, announced that around 20 major artists had agreed to donate at least one piece to the Tate. Hockney is now among only eight who have actually done so (others include Damien Hirst and Antony Gormley). As Mr. Hockney himself points out, British museums need all the help they can get. "America is already enriched with gifts," he was quoted as saying in the Times, "but that is mainly because tax breaks make it easier for living people to give. It's harder here."

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