Other Trees, Other Hockeys. (and one really big Hockney painting of loads of massive trees!)

I was back at Cartwright Hall today, for the training to be a volunteer tour guide. Hockey’s Bigger Trees Near Warter arrives next week and in conjunction with this, the gallery are running two short tours, Other Hockneys and Other Trees. And a bunch of volunteers, including myself, are going to be your lovely tour guides!

We all met this afternoon to meet each other and be taken on the tours by Claire, the Learning and Outreach Officer for Bradford Museums and Galleries. First we went upstairs to the Connect galleries, which house a really diverse and really interesting collection of artworks, all with some connection to Bradford and its people. There are five ‘stops’ on the Other Hockneys tour, taking in a selection of his work from throughout his career showing his different ways of working and his mastery of many different mediums. Downstairs, past the main gallery where Bigger Trees Near Warter will be in pride of place, is the temporary exhibition Other Trees, where the second tour takes place. This is a selection of works, (painted, carved, weaved and stitched) from the collections of Bradford Museums and Galleries, some of which haven’t been displayed for years. Unsurprisingly, all of the works in this gallery are of, or inspired by, trees. There are some really lovely things in there, and a little mystery in the shape of two carved columns. These columns were donated anonymously, and no-one knows who made them or where they came from. So come along and have a look – we want to know if any Bradfordians  recognise the columns and can tell us their story! We also want to hear from anyone who knows Hockney himself, or has an interesting tale to tell about the artist or his works, and we’ll weave these into our tours as the weeks go on. Hopefully, you can tell us some things, that then we can tell everybody else!

The Other Trees and Other Hockneys tours are running every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, at half past two and three o clock, from next weekend until the end of November. Bigger Trees Near Warter is in residence at Cartwright from 1^st October to 4^th March, and the Other Trees exhibition is on until 26^th February. Come along and see us – and hopefully I’ll have done all my homework and learned all about Hockey and trees by then!

http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/venues/cartwrighthall/index.php