Credit: PHOTO: RICHARD SCHMIDT

For some weeks London tube-travellers were treated to posters of this David Hockney painting, “A Closer Grand Canyon, 1998”, advertising the annual summer exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts at Burlington House, Piccadilly, in central London. The posters, let alone this picture, scarcely do justice to the scale of the work, which is painted in oils on 96 canvases, with an overall dimension of about 11 by 24 feet. A room at the exhibition is devoted to six such vivid depictions of the canyon.

According to Hockney, it is the space rather than geology of the canyon he has tried to capture in this and similar studies: “the sense of the eye meandering through a vast landscape”. Photography failed to do so. So pastel drawings were used as the basis for the final works in oils, which have come to London after being on display at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

The summer exhibition includes art of various forms, including architectural models, both by academicians such as Hockney and non-academicians, and runs until 15 August. Hockney's Grand Canyon pastels and other drawings can be seen at Annely Juda Fine Art, 23 Dering Street, London W1, in a separate showing which starts on 30 June and ends on 18 September.