David Hockney

The Haunted Castle (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) David Hockney

1969

Catherina Dorothea Viehman (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 1...

Sheet from “Rapunzel” story (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Text printed letterpress and “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your Hair” etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Etching 10.5 × 9.85 in. / 26.7 × 25 cm Paper 17.5 x 12.25 in. / 45 x 31 cm Unsigned: apart from the published edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios. This is one of eleven images recently found in our archive which we have decided to make available. There is one only of each image. Perhaps the most famous story from the Grimm Brothers, Rapunzel spins the tale of a beautiful young princess locked away by an evil sorceress. Captured in this scene is the moment a King's son came across the tower and fell in love with her sweet singing, beseeching her: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair to me.' Though the sorcerer banishes Rapunzel and maims the prince, they are of course ultimately reunited to live happily together. Hockney illustrates this scene with incredible texture detail: layers of aquatint defining the soft forest floor, delicate hatching on the horse's haunch, the tower's tight crosshatching, and of course the lyrical gesture of Rapunzel's hair which cascades from the upper right corner. This print from our publisher's archives is one of thirty-nine etchings from David Hockney’s 1969 "Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm". Hockney worked on this series with Paul Cornwall-Jones at Petersburg Press over the course of a year. 400 books and 100 portfolios plus artist’s proofs were printed. The artist illustrated six stories: 'The Little Sea Hare', 'Fundevogel', 'Rapunzel', 'The Boy who left Home to learn Fear', 'Old Rinkrank' and 'Rumpelstilzchen'. According to Hockney, "They're fascinating, the little stories, told in a very, very simple, direct, straightforward language and style, it was this simplicity that attracted me. They cover quite a strange range of experience, from the magical to the moral." He was inspired by earlier illustrators of the tales, including Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, but Hockney reimagined the stories for a modern audience. The frontispiece for the project pictures Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, the elderly German woman who recounted fairy tales to the Grimm brothers when they were in their late twenties. In Hockney's words: “The stories weren’t written by the Brothers Grimm…they came across this woman called Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, who told 20 stories to them in this simple language, and they were so moved by them that they wrote them down word for word as she spoke.” Hockney drew the German woman in the style of Dürer, formally posed yet naturalistic against an impeccably crosshatched swath of grey. Hockney wrote about the surreal plots contained in the Brothers Grimm tales: “…the stories really are quite mad, when you think of it, and quite strange. In modern times, it’s like the story of a couple moving into a house, and in the next door’s garden they see this lettuce growing: and the wife develops this craving for the lettuce that she just must have and climbs over to pinch it, and the old woman who lives in the house next door says well, you can have the lettuce if you give me your child, and they agree to it. And if you put it into terms like this and imagine them in their semi-detached house agreeing to it all, it seems incredible.” Hockney enhanced this unbelievable quality with his illustrations which traverse inky, dense areas of intense crosshatching and minimalist line work. Rather than serving as direct interpretations of the plot, the images capture moments and feelings. Some portray the magic yet mundane -- Rapunzel's tiny face gazing placidly at a well-tended garden, or project danger and unease as in The Haunted Castle, with its citadel perched atop craggy rocks, dramatically lit against a dark sky. Hockney's sense of humor comes through in Cold Water About to Hit the Prince, in which a man tucked into bed stares straight at a rush of water drawn with a splash (this technique is likely Spit Bite, and the resultant bold spattered brushstroke contrasts beautifully with the rest of the carefully crosshatched image). A Wooded Landscape, with its lush textures, conveys the bucolic setting of a fairy tale and the potential danger hidden within the woods -- the viewer is left to wonder who lives on the hilltop in that diminutive cabin. These etchings defy the conventions of beautiful fairy tale illustrations...

Claes Oldenburg straddles the playful and the obscene in this colorful, spontaneous etching depicting an enormous tongue emerging from the clouds. When printing “à la poupée”, multip...

Printed in black and grey, this large scale abstract monotype depicts an interior scene. While Zalopany typically draws with subtle gradations of color and texture, here the artist e...

Large scale color monotype of a Western landscape with sapphire blue sky, green trees, river, yellow and orange hills, and red clay cliffs, to enliven minimalist, modern, and contemp...

This large scale landscape monotype in black and brown features a scene from London’s Greenwich Park, a former hunting park established in the 15...

Paul Geissler's view of downtown Philadelphia features it's wonderful city hall. Philadelphia is gifted with an actual plan and the city hall itself is a...

Painter and printmaker, Luigi Lucioni was known for his portraits, still life paintings, and landscapes of Vermont and Italy. This 'New England Barn' ...

While this is probably a military airport, Kent Hagerman still shows it at its futuristic best. Hagerman was an amazing draftsman who managed to get fantastic detail into his work. This is really a portrait of a plane -- the Fairchild C-119. The words 'United States Air Force' on the side of the plane date it to 1947 or later, after the Air Force split from the Army. The design featured the 'twin boom' clearly showing in this etching. Thanks to this feature it was called the Flying Boxcar. About 1100 were built and used until 1955. It was also used by the Chinese Air...

Japanese born, Fugi Nakamizo came to New York City in 1910. He studied at the Art Students League and Cooper Union, NYC, and also printmaking with Joseph Pennell. He worked on the Federal Public Works of Art Project in the 1930s and in the 40s, during WWII, was interned at the Japanese-American internment camp in Topaz, Utah. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC, and the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. This etching of New York...

S. L Margolies (Samuel L.) made dynamic urban views and calm country scenes. This peaceful subject, with snow-covered hills and tidy cabin, Silent Symphony, 1946, marks an end to the...

Working in the tradition of the Etching Revival, Ernest David Roth made this amazingly conceived and detailed study of the entrance to the Spanish ci...