Emma Clayton looks at a new gallery opening in David Hockney's home city of Bradford, celebrating the early life and work of the artist as he turns 80

DAVID Hockney's love of the landscapes of East Yorkshire is no secret. He produced a string of paintings throughout the 2000s that immortalised the Wolds and other parts of the county.

Bigger Trees Near Warter, in 2007, was the largest painting he'd ever made, consisting of a staggering 50 canvassed linked together. But countless other paintings spoke of his love for this part of the world: 2004's A Wider Valley, Millington; 2005's Huggate's St Mary's Church Spire; 2007's Three Trees near Thixendale.

In 2015, having left the east coast of Yorkshire for the west coast of the United States, he effectively sent a love letter back to Yorkshire from California in the form of an exhibition of 33 iPad paintings - again, many of them East Yorkshire landscapes.

So closely has he become associated with the area that there's now a 'Hockney Trail', which guides visitors around the East Yorkshire locations where he painted many of his most famous works. Check it out for yourself at www.yocc.co.uk/ if you're interested...

But while his heart may be in East Yorkshire, Hockney's roots are very much in his home city of Bradford. So it is entirely fitting that, as he turns 80, a new gallery celebrating his early life and work should have opened there.

As a boy, Hockney would often visit Cartwright Hall, the grand Victorian art gallery across the road from his school in Bradford. It was, he said, the only place in the city where he could see real paintings.

Now a new permanent gallery has opened there celebrating his life and work.

The focus of the David Hockney Gallery is the city that made the man - how Hockney’s formative years in Bradford shaped and influenced his art.

The exhibition includes family photographs from the artist's personal albums, displayed publicly for the first time and offering a rare, intimate glimpse into the artist's life; a short film of him talking and working at his Bridlington studio; rarely exhibited early sketchbooks; the largest public collection of work from his time at Bradford School of Art; and original artwork created at a Cartwright Hall workshop by Hockney's father.

"This is the very building that inspired him to become the man we know as the greatest English living painter," says Jill Iredale, curator at Cartwright Hall. "In creating this gallery, we are able to show the incredible early years of Hockney’s work in the immediate context of his family and surroundings - something only truly possible here in his home city."

Jill has been given exclusive access to David Hockney in this, his 80th year. For two years she has worked closely with the artist's studio to create a permanent display unearthing his roots and following the first steps on his journey towards becoming one of the world's most significant artists.

After initially gaining Hockney's approval, she liaised with him on the content. "He has been really supportive, and very generous in giving and lending us his works," said Jill. "He let us reproduce images from his personal family photo albums that haven't been seen in public before. Only a very small number of people have seen them."

Spanning three decades, from the 1960s - 80s, the photographs depict day trips Hockney took with his family to the Lake District as a young man, family snaps at home in Bradford and the artist’s beloved dogs at his home in LA.

Bradford Museums and Galleries holds the largest public collection of Hockney’s earliest work. On display will be many of his lithographs and etchings, including two of his most famous series of prints - The Blue Guitar and A Rake’s Progress - which will be shown in their entirety. The gallery will also house a significant collection of early works created between 1953-57 by the young Hockney at Bradford School of Art.

"This was our starting point," says Jill. "These drawings tell the story of how it all started for David Hockney in Bradford. Downstairs we will have a new gallery featuring work of Bradford artists from 1850 to 1950, when Hockney was starting out. All the artists of his generation say learning to draw was the basis for everything for them; it taught them technique, and to look closely at things they wouldn't normally look closely at. They all credit Bradford School of Art for teaching them to draw properly. Hockney has been very vocal about that too. Everything, right up to his iPad work, was underpinned by the fact that he could draw, it all goes back to that school of art."

Locations in the city that inspired Hockney also feature. A specially created map of Bradford noting local places referenced by his work will be illustrated by paintings, sketches and photographs - a muted contrast to his more colourful work that followed, inspired by his move to Los Angeles in 1964.

"For visitors who don't know Bradford, this is a useful way of pinpointing places such as where he lived, some of the streets he captured in early sketches and ink drawings, Bradford Grammar School, and Cartwright Hall," says Jill.

A new short film on view in the gallery, by celebrated arts documentary maker Bruno Wolheim, features unseen footage of David Hockney working in Yorkshire. Wolheim followed the artist for three years (2003-6), gathering over 100 hours of footage for his 2009 film, David Hockney - A Bigger Picture, and this 20-minute film, specially created for the gallery, uses unseen material gathered over that period.

"Bruno filmed him for three years in Bridlington, painting in his studio and out on the road in the countryside. Through the film you get an idea of what it's like sitting with and talking to Hockney, and watching him paint," says Jill. "People are fascinated by Hockney and want to know who he really is. We get children learning about his work asking things like: 'Does he have brothers or sisters? Does he have pets?' This film sheds light on who he is, as well as Hockney the artist."

The gallery looks at aspects of Hockney's diverse practice, including his technique and influence on fashion. Also on display will be Le Plongeur - one of the three largest pieces from a series of 29 pictures Hockney created from coloured paper pulp, shown alongside archive photos showing how they were made over an intense 45-day period in New York in 1978 - and iPad drawings he made in 2010/11 during an extended period in Bridlington.

Visitors will also have chance to walk in the footsteps of the young Hockney, and see some of the paintings that were hanging in Cartwright Hall when he visited in his youth. On display will be photographs of him judging the first British International Print Biennale at Cartwright Hall in 1968, and original artwork created by Hockney's father, Kenneth, at a workshop there in 1974.

"Hockney was very much inspired by Cartwright Hall," says Jill. "At that time it was the only place in Bradford where you could see paintings. Before the internet, art wasn't so widely accessible. Hockney recalls that when he first came here he thought fine art was something artists did in their spare time. He came from an age when people went to art school to train for a job, often a commercial signwriter. That was how you made a living - not from being an artist.

"There has never been a purely dedicated Hockney gallery before. We've taken a more intimate approach than other exhibitions. It has been fascinating to look closely at the work he created while still living in Bradford. Visitors will see some revealing early practice and influences on an artist widely recognised for his sun-drenched LA swimming pools and colourful East Yorkshire hills.”

While Hockney has yet to visit the new gallery, he was very much included in 80th birthday celebrations held in Lister Park, the elegant park where Cartwright Hall stands. The event included a parade of Hockney-themed handmade puppets and a huge birthday cake, surrounded by 'human candles'.

Young visitors tried their hand at iPad drawing, one of Hockney’s current favourite methods of art, and five actors portrayed five different periods of the artist’s career.

And a Hockney disco in the park was inspired by one the Yorkshireman’s best-loved quotes: “I hate background music, I only like music in the foreground”.

* Visit bradfordmuseums.org