The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea(MMCA) is holding an exhibition titled 'David Hockney: Bigger Trees Near Warter' at the Main Hall of the MMCA in Gwacheon. This exhibition presents English artist David Hockney’s monumental work, Bigger Trees Near Warter, which epitomizes his latest artistic tendencies to the utmost degree.

This exhibition is being held in collaboration with the UK’s Tate Modern as part of the MMCA’s program of exchanges with prestigious international museums. The artwork on display is considered the most valuable piece of the Tate’s collection.

Hockney was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England in 1937. By the early 1960s, although still a student, he had become an internationally acclaimed artist. During the late 20th century, he was active in a wide range of artistic activities including painting, photography, and stage design, developing his own unique art world. Currently, he is recognized as one of the most popular and highly acclaimed artists of the 21st century.

The artwork Bigger Trees Near Warter is the largest of Hockney’s recent multi-canvas landscape paintings, occupying a total of fifty canvases measuring 4.6 meters high by 12 meters wide in total. The official title of the artwork is 'Bigger Trees Near Warter or/Ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique'.

After having lived in L.A. for more than thirty years, actively working in various fields there, he returned to his home county of Yorkshire, and his artistic interest shifted back to his ultimate quest for ‘the infinite diversity of nature.’ To concretize his search, he chose a multi-canvas approach and attempted to capture the endless flux of nature, while simultaneously illuminating our ways of perceiving scenes. The painting depicts a scenic view near Warter, Pocklington in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Due to the overwhelming size of the painting, anyone who approaches it feels as if they are stepping into an actual forest. Here, viewers can enjoy observing the ever-changing state of nature, a phenomenon which cannot be easily captured. Through this exhibition, Korean viewers will have a great opportunity to see a new trend of modern art up close and to feel a great artist’s enthusiasm and pursuit of art.

Furthermore, visitors to the exhibition will have an opportunity to view an enlightening documentary film titled David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, which shows the progress of the creation of this artwork. The film, which was produced and directed by British film director Bruno Wollheim, documents the process by which Hockney created an entirely new type of artwork in his home county of Yorkshire after residing in L.A. for more than thirty years. This film received the Best Essay Award at the 2010 Montreal International Art Film Festival and was nominated as a candidate for the Best Art Documentary Award at the 2010 Emmy Awards. 

*image (left) 
Bigger Trees Near Warter Or/Ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photographique, 2007
Oil paint on 50 Canvases (91.8 x122.5cm each)
450 x1200cm overall
Copyright David Hockney
Presented by the artist 2008
Collection Tate, London