Lithograph of Water Made of Thick and Thin Lines and a Light Blue and a Dark Blue Wash

Occupying a central place within David Hockney’s oeuvre and having permeated popular culture, the subject of the swimming pool is one of the artist’s most famous motifs and perhaps one of the most recognisable subjects within western contemporary art. Recalling how he had looked down from the plane to see ‘blue swimming pools all over’ (D. Hockney, quoted in conversation with M. Glazebrook, David Hockney: Paintings, Prints and Drawings 1960-1970, exh. cat. Whitechapel Gallery, London 1970, p. 11) the swimming pool subsequently formed a part of Hockney’s obsession with post-war America and the allure of the leisurely Californian lifestyle, which had taken hold of the artist from the moment he arrived in California in 1964.

Lithograph of Water Made of Thick and Thin Lines and a Light Blue and a Dark Blue Wash belongs to this iconic area of Hockney’s artistic output, while also illustrating his intensely experimental approach to printmaking, which is a creative practice that has occupied him throughout his career. The present work not only reflects Hockney’s enduring fascination with the ever-changing properties of water and light, but also the formal challenge of how to portray this within a printmaking medium, specifically, in this instance, through lithography. As Hockney has contemplated, ‘… it is a formal problem to represent water, to describe water, because it can be anything—it can be any colour, it’s movable, it has no set visual description’ (D. Hockney, quoted in N. Stangos (ed.), Pictures by David Hockney, London 1979, p. 48). From Hockney’s depiction of the rippling water to the refracted sunlight, the numerous aluminium plates used to create this final image allows Hockney to build up various layers of tone which convey a sense of depth in the swimming pool, while simultaneously allowing a playful layering of mark-making to portray the interaction between light and water. This careful construction creates an optical interaction that is both hypnotic and revealing of Hockney’s mastery at representing the elusive nature of water and light.

‘… it is a formal problem to represent water, to describe water, because it can be anything—it can be any colour, it’s movable, it has no set visual description’ — David Hockney

With the practice of drawing existing at the core of all of Hockney’s artistic endeavours, printmaking is a medium in which the artist is arguably offered the greatest scope for mark-making and experimentation, as illustrated by the present composition. Indeed, having demonstrated a deep engagement with art history throughout his career, this print highlights an assimilation of graphic mark-making that is reminiscent of both Impressionist and Modern masters alike, including artists such as Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Andre Dérain and Pablo Picasso.

Further parallels with these masters can be identified in Hockney’s rigorous and relentless examination of the same scene which is portrayed eleven times within the iconic series created between 1978-80, from which Lithograph of Water Made of Thick and Thin Lines and a Light Blue and a Dark Blue Wash belongs. Through diversity of line and selective use of different colours and various washes, Hockney dramatically alters this scene, which can be seen through a direct comparison of this work (Lot 17) and Lot 18. This extended investigation of the same subject is comparable to many of Monet’s most famous painting series in which he repeatedly portrays the same scene during varying light and meteorological conditions, the most closely comparable perhaps being Monet's Nymphéas series. Hockney has himself reflected that he believes “[…] that the problem of how to depict something is… an interesting one and it’s a permanent one; there is no solution to it. There are a thousand and one ways you can go about it. There is no set rule”. Such a sentiment is deeply embedded within this iconic print series, of which the present work is an excellent example.