David Hockney
A Moving Still Life, from The Blue Guitar
1976-1977

Name: A Moving Still Life, from The Blue Guitar
Brand: David Hockney
Price: 14400 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

David Hockney A Moving Still Life, from The Blue Guitar, 1976-1977 is a playful scene that takes its title to the full extent of its literal meaning. The center of the composition is dominated by a mannequin-like head and a table with a typical still-life arrangement, set on the surface of a large table suggested by the shading and edge lines in the bottom right. The hair of the mannequin blows out behind it, threading neatly through a mysterious red hoop descending from the top edge of the work. The still life table next to the mannequin seems to dissolve its tablecloth into four appendage-like legs, which look ready to walk out of the scene. Already, we see the moving that the title suggests. At the top left. A collection of line marks and strokes of color float in an undefined space, transforming the composition by playing with the suggested three-dimensionality of the tables. At the foreground, rising from the bottom edge are five precarious pedestals supporting traditional still-life class objects. All of them lack any straight geometric line, giving them a swaying, organic quality that further adds to the surreal movements of the entire work. The piece is as playful as it is eye-catching, a hallmark of Hockney’s unique style. Created between 1976-1977, A Moving Still Life, from The Blue Guitar is an etching and aquatint on paper hand-signed by David Hockney (Bradford 1937-) in pencil in the lower right and numbered from the edition of 200 in pencil in the lower left. About the Framing: Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, David Hockney A Moving Still Life, from The Blue Guitar, 1976-1977 is presented in a complementary moulding and optical grade Plexiglas.

Creator:

David Hockney (1937, British)

Creation Year:

1976-1977

Dimensions:

Height: 18.13 in (46.06 cm)Width: 20.75 in (52.71 cm)

Medium:

Aquatint,Etching

Movement & Style:

Modern

Period:

1970-1979

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Palo Alto, CA

Reference Number:

Seller: 64171stDibs: LU1567210817322

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David Hockney

The art of David Hockney is always engaging in its pleasant ambiguities: his prints, drawings and paintings are warm but somehow aloof; filled with light yet often dark and brooding in subject; simple, frank and mundane, but also ethereal and complex. The artist’s stature in the contemporary art world is such that, in a 2011 survey of one thousand British painters and sculptors, he was named the most influential British artist of all time.

Hockney grew up in Bradford, in the northern English county of Yorkshire, studying at the Bradford School of Art from 1953 to ’57, and at the Royal College of Art in London from 1959 to 1962. Though he was educated in art at a time when abstraction dominated the field, Hockney stuck resolutely to figurative painting and drawing.

Hockney's early paintings suggest a search for a style, veering from Expressionism to a grotesquerie suggestive of James Ensor. But Hockney found himself almost the moment he arrived in Los Angeles, in 1963. The move from the gray and rainy Britain to a world of bright sunshine and sparkling water brought Hockney a sense of freedom and an artistic epiphany. He would spend most of the next five years in L.A., painting luminous pictures, such as A Bigger Splash (1967), of things that made him happy: swimming pools, manicured lawns, palm trees, stucco buildings and luxuries like shower stalls. Hockney also painted people, almost always his friends. His California portraits such as Beverly Hills Housewife (1966) are considered to be his finest work. They are at once grandly scaled, intimate and poetic.

In the 1970s, Hockney moved back to Britain and spent much of his time on photography and printmaking. He returned to painting in the 1980s, and to subjects like still lifes, seascapes and portraits. Hockney has always been fascinated by the use of technology in art — he’s credited with inventing the technique of joining Polaroid photos in a collage to form a panoramic picture — and has been using the Brush app to paint on an iPad. Because he is prolific and works in a wide range of mediums, Hockney’s art is available at many price points. His consistently striking and provocative work should have a place in any comprehensive collection of contemporary art.

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