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| Nichols Canyon on down towards its entrance off of Hollywood Boulevard to the South - this image is looking roughly South down into the property and all of the way down the canyon in Hockney's Nichols Canyon from the brown curve depicted center left at the top of the upper part of the painting - artistic license understood. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2007) |
David Hockney, Laurel & Nichols Canyons, And A 1980 Driveway Encounter
David Hockney passed yesterday at the age of 88, leaving behind a body of work
that forever reframed how the world sees Southern California light, landscape,
and lived experience. For one longtime Angeleno family nestled in Nichols
Canyon - just one twist east of the more celebrated Laurel Canyon - the news
carried an especially personal resonance.
In the early 1980s, while the patriarch tended his front yard on a quiet
decomposed-granite driveway, a familiar silver-haired artist pulled in
unannounced. It was David Hockney. The two men spoke at length beneath the
warm canyon sun.
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| HollyLoa from the front looking North with Palm Tree Point on the right next to the decomposed granite driveway - this image is looking roughly North up into the property depicted in Hockney's Nichols Canyon by the yellow Queen Palm with the stucco house behind at center left near the bottom of the upper third of the painting. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2007) |
Hockney, camera in hand, captured images of the classic 1940s ranch-style home perched behind hand-laid stone terraces overflowing with purple lantana, long-needle pines, bamboo clusters, and a majestic queen palm standing sentinel at the driveway’s entrance. The air that day, as on most days in the canyon, carried the unmistakable perfume of native sage, eucalyptus, and wild chaparral rising on the breeze.
Years would pass before the family connected those casual driveway photographs
to Hockney’s now-iconic painting "Nichols Canyon."
When the print finally came into view, the recognition was immediate: the very house, the winding road ascending toward it, and that unmistakable queen palm anchoring the center of the composition. The canvas traces Nichols Canyon Road as it snakes upward past the family property and continues all the way to Mulholland Drive, capturing the layered greens, golden hills, and rhythmic curves that define this tucked-away corner of the Hollywood Hills.
Hockney’s brief visit and resulting masterpiece remain a cherished private
chapter in the canyon’s artistic lore - a moment when one of the 20th
century’s greatest painters paused on a neighbor’s driveway, breathed the same
chaparral-scented air, and transformed an everyday residential vista into
something enduring and luminous.
Rest in peace, Mr. Hockney. Your brush touched more than canvas; it touched
memory itself.
HollyLoa ... Twenty-Seven Years Beyond
HollyLoa was sold in court in an overbid auction process and will have a new
owner after escrow is complete in the summer of 2007.
The end of a proud and happy era in Nichols Canyon (1943 - 2007).
May God continue to bless everyone who will carry on the legacy of the property that was once known to the Willard & Maxine Jenks family as:
"HollyLoa"
Footnote: Yes, the Maxine mentioned in the previous sentence is the namesake ant tribute of the spirit of Maxine Jenks - MAXINE.
TAGS: #DavidHockney, #NicholsCanyon, #LaurelCanyon, #HollywoodHills,
#CaliforniaLight, #Chaparral, #ArtAndMemory, #MAXINE, #TheEDJE,
#RIPDavidHockney
