‘Yosemite is nearer to LA than the Grand Canyon and it has similar spaces. You can drive there in five hours; the Grand Canyon is a tenhour drive. To go to Yosemite from LA, you drive up to Fresno, then into the sierras. You keep going higher and higher. You are aware of that; signs keep telling you the height above sea level: 4,000 feet, 5,000 feet. Pine forests begin. As you approach Yosemite itself, you are conscious of a great valley down to your left. Then you go through a tunnel, and immediately there is a car park because, the moment you come out, it is so spectacular, you put your foot on the brakes. Everybody does. You see this incredible valley, verdant at the base and with big waterfalls, vast canyon walls. It’s truly spectacular. People just stand and look at it. It’s the space that’s thrilling. It’s quite something.’ 1
– David Hockney

In 2010 and 2011, David Hockney captured the awesome majesty of Yosemite National Park in a series of iPad drawings that highlight his continuing fascination with the epic landscapes of the American West. Featuring El Capitan, Bridalveil Fall and Half Dome, the present work depicts one of the most iconic and sublime views of Yosemite as observed from the ‘Tunnel View’ vantage point. A romantic scene of untrampled wilderness, Hockney’s image is reminiscent of mid-19th century paintings of Yosemite by Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902) and the photographs of Carleton Watkins (1829 – 1916).
After Hockney’s first trip to Yosemite, new software was released, which meant that his drawings could now be printed out at a much larger scale without pixelating. When he returned in 2011, he made five new iPad drawings with this new possibility in mind. Initially, he printed some of these out at 60 inches tall, which lead him to discover that ‘they were very, very strong, as powerful as paintings actually’ and so he decided to enlarge them further. 2 For his 2012 exhibition A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Hockney printed four of the new Yosemite drawings at 144 ⅛ by 108 inches, and this drawing at 143 ½ by 128 ¼ inches. The present work belongs to a select group of drawings that he additionally printed on a more commercially accessible scale in editions of 12. To overcome technical limitations the artist deviseda method of printing the image in four sections and mounting these together on sheets of Dibond.
Despite a scheduled run lasting less than three months, A Bigger Picture attracted more than 600,000 visitors, making it one of the most popular museum shows in British history.

1 Martin Gayford, A Bigger Message, Conversations with David Hockney, Thames & Hudson, London, 2016, pp138 – 9
2 Hockney in an interview with Anders Kold at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 2011: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8R3Wd2zh9s