Hockney has a home and studio in Kensington, London and two homes in California, where he has lived on and off for more than 30 years. Scenes around his home have inspired several of his paintings.
While A Closer Grand Canyon is similar to his painting of Nichols, Los Angeles in terms of bringing the beauty of nature to the viewer, it was produced using a different technique. Hockney has a love for nature and attractive scenes of the outdoors form the topic of many of his compositions through the decades.
In his time spent at the Royal College of Art in London (RCA), from 1950-62, a friend asked Hockney why he did not simply paint the things he adored. This was an essential question in molding Hockney’s body of work. The craftsman went ahead to do only that. He is known for painting scenes that captivate him.
Hockney finished this unique work is 1998. Few noteworthy specialists have pondered the Grand Canyon. It is famously troublesome given its immense scale. The latest artist to tackle such a grand space is David Hockney.
He had always harboured a craving to chip away at the subject. This seed was planted as far back as his initial visit to America as a young fellow. As a mature craftsman today, he has connected phenomenal expertise to the work of art.
Hockney captured the Grand Canyon in 1982 in a set of photographs. He remarked later that he needed to photograph what was impossible. Which is to say, he wanted to photograph not what was physically tangible but the space around him.
For Hockney, there was no doubt that part of the excitement of remaining on the edge of the Grand Canyon was spatial. It is the greatest space any person can gaze over that has an edge.
His choice to make photographs of the Grand Canyon was inspired by Cubist thought. Hockney said he thought he was setting aside a few minutes to put photos together, then he understood that by making the collage, he was making space. That led him to understand that time and space are a similar thing.
