Heaton Avenue First School

Local Artists

Clarice Cliff

David Hockney

Bridget Riley

David Hockney – an artist

• David Hockney was born in Bradford on 9th July 1937.

• He then went to Bradford Grammar School, Bradford College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London.

• For many years, he lived in California in America and he painted pictures of swimming pools like ‘A Bigger Splash’.

• He painted pictures of his friends and his own dogs called Stanley and Boodgie.

• He also painted and drew pictures of himself.

• David Hockney made collage pictures using lots of different photographs that he had taken.

• He also painted pictures of the countryside, with fields, trees, rivers and hills.

• In the Foundation Unit we are going to have a go at painting pictures like these.

• David Hockney is now using an iPad to create his pictures.

• David Hockney lives in Bridlington, in Yorkshire.

• Many of his paintings can be seen at Salts Mill in Saltaire, near Bradford.

• This picture of Salts Mill was painted by David Hockney.

Bridget Riley - artist

Her early days

• Bridget Riley was born in London in on 24th April 1931. Her father, John was from Leeds, West Yorkshire and really wanted to move back to the north of England.

• In 1938, her father moved his family and his printing business to Lincolnshire. A step closer to Yorkshire.

On the move again

• Sadly, Bridget didn’t get to spend long in Lincolnshire. In 1939, when the 2nd World War started her father was sent to join the army. Bridget, her sister, mum and auntie went to live in Cornwall away from the dangers of the blitz.

Life in Cornwall

• In Cornwall, she spent a lot of her time playing on the beaches. She enjoyed watching the sky change colour and the patterns the clouds made. She stored all the colours and patterns in her memory and used them later in her art.

18 - 24 years old

• In 1949 she went back to London to study art at Goldsmiths College and then at the Royal College of art in 1952. She left college in 1955 to start work as an artist.

The 1960’s

• In 1960 she began to use shapes to create her Op Art style. This consisted of black and white geometric patterns.

• Op art is a style of art that creates optical illusions or plays tricks with your eyes.

Where to look first?

• Bridget Riley held her first exhibition in 1962 which was mainly her black and white geometric shapes.

• She very gradually changed the size and the position of her shapes to confuse our eyes. Where should you look first? What do they make you think? Can you describe what you see? These are all questions she wants us to ask ourselves.

Using colour

• Bridget Riley became very famous and people recognised her work because she only used black and white but, in 1966, she began using colour and started to introduce curves and gentle changes of tone.

Remember Cornwall?

Bridget in New York

• In 1965 Bridget Riley was invited to take her paintings to New York, USA in an exhibition of modern art. It was one of her paintings that was used on the cover of the catalogue. She was now famous worldwide.

• It was in this year that Bridget became England’s number one artist.

A big change for Bridget

• Even though Op art had even inspired fashion designers in the 60’s, by the time the 1970’s had come along art had changed and it was no longer fashionable so Bridget Riley decided to spend her time travelling the world looking for new inspiration.

Big Blue 1981-82

• After seeing many countries and collecting many ideas, Bridget Riley returned to England in 1981 and painted this Big Blue.

• It was inspired by the light and colours of the Egyptian landscape and ancient Egyptian artefacts.

• This saw another change in the style of Bridget Riley.

The Old Winter Palace, Luxor, Egypt

Winter Palace, by Bridget Riley which hangs in the Leeds City Museum

From Luxor, Egypt to Leeds, England

Today

• 2011 Bridget Riley is now 79 and living in New York.

Clarice Cliff

January 1899 - October 1972

Clarice Cliff was an English ceramic industrial artist

active from 1922 to 1963

Her inspirationsAfter school, Cliff would visit aunts

who were hand painters at a local pottery company

• She also made models from papier-mâché at school

Her Early Life• Clarice Cliff was born in Stoke-

on-Trent in 1899. By the First World War, she was working in one of the many factories that dominated the potteries.

By the late 1920s, during economic recession, Clarice was designing innovative, colour rich pottery and her career was blossoming.

Her first job was at ‘Linguard Webster andCo’ where she was apprenticed as an enameller for the wage of one shilling (5p) a week. Here she learned freehand painting, and after 3 years moved to work as a lithographer at Hollinshead and Kirkham.

Clarice Cliff went to evening classes in Tunstall and in 1916 joined A J Wilkinson’s Royal Staffordshire Pottery in Burslem. Jack Walker, her decorating manager, soon recognised her artistic flair and brought her to the notice of the company boss Colley Shorter.

In 1927, her employer arranged for her to study sculpture for a few months at the Royal College of Art, London, and then set her up in her own studio.

• Clarice was allowed to experiment with designs and her first pieces were brightly coloured, geometric patterns and shapes

Bizarre!

These early designs were called Bizarre Ware. She was in charge of a small team of paintresses, dubbed ‘Bizarre Girls’ and these patterns were in direct contrast to the traditional styles.

Nowadays, Cliff’s pottery is still very much in demand

•Some pieces of Clarice Cliff’s work can fetch anywhere up to £20,000!!!