The Tower had one Window (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) David Hockney
View Similar Items
David HockneyThe Tower had one Window (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) David Hockney1969
1969
About the Item
- Creator:David Hockney (1937, British)
- Creation Year:1969
- Dimensions:Height: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)Width: 12.25 in (31.12 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Waviness and aging of paper commensurate with age, as photographed.
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1211211030372
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.
Find original David Hockney art on 1stDibs.
- Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your Hair (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm)By David HockneyLocated in New York, NYSheet 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...Category
1960s Modern Landscape Prints
MaterialsEtching, Aquatint
- Catherina Dorothea Viehman (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) HockneyBy David HockneyLocated in New York, NYCatherina Dorothea Viehman (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 1...Category
1960s Modern Figurative Prints
MaterialsAquatint, Etching
- The Haunted Castle (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) David HockneyBy David HockneyLocated in New York, NYThe Haunted Castle (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 17.5 x 12.25 in. / 45 x 31 cm Plate 14 ...Category
1960s Modern Figurative Prints
MaterialsEtching
- Study for Tongue Cloud, Claes Oldenburg surreal pop art landscape red and blackBy Claes OldenburgLocated in New York, NYClaes 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...Category
Late 20th Century Pop Art Figurative Prints
MaterialsEtching
- Teatro Junín, Caracas, Venezuela: black white city neon lights night landscapeBy Michele ZalopanyLocated in New York, NYStriking, large, black and white city landscape in South America at night. A couple strolls towards the neon lights of a vintage 1950's theater, reflected in the wet sidewalk, with palm trees and tropical plants. Hand painted monotype ink creates a dramatic, film noir painting...Category
1980s Contemporary Landscape Prints
MaterialsMonotype
- Fjord by Henry Moore drawing of Scottish landscape for W.H. Auden poetry bookBy Henry MooreLocated in New York, NYOne of a series of 18 lithographs drawn by the artist for the Auden Poems/Moore Lithographs 1974 book and portfolio. This work is from an edition of 25 printed on vellum aside from t...Category
Late 20th Century Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Julian Trevelyan Gravesend Etching Modern British Art London Print UK ThamesBy Julian TrevelyanLocated in London, GBWe have seven of Julian Trevelyan's 'Thames Suite' of prints, plus other prints and oil paintings by him - and other Modern British Artists. To see the others, scroll down to "More f...Category
1960s Modern Figurative Prints
MaterialsAquatint, Etching
- Venice - Original Lithograph 1960sLocated in Roma, ITImage dimensions: 34 x 45 cm. Venice is an original lithograph realized by an unknown artist (Michel Kingl) in the 1960s. Colored lithograph on paper. Hand-signed in pencil by the ...Category
1970s Modern Landscape Prints
MaterialsAquatint, Etching
- 'Coenties Slip' — 1920s Lower Manhattan, Financial DistrictBy Luigi KasimirLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCLuigi Kasimir, 'Coenties Slip', color etching with aquatint, 1927, edition 100. Signed in pencil. Dated in the plate, lower right. Annotated 'NEW YORK HANOVER SQUARE (COENTIES SLIP)'...Category
1920s American Modern Landscape Prints
MaterialsEtching, Aquatint
- September 13, 1918. St. Mihiel [The Great Black Cloud].By Kerr EbyLocated in Storrs, CTSeptember 13, 1918. St. Mihiel [The Great Black Cloud]. 1934. Etching, aquatint and sandpaper ground. Giardina catalog 182 state iv. 10 3/8 x 16 (sheet 13 1/8 x 18 1/4). Edition 100. Illustrated: Prints vol. VI, no. 2, 1935, page 85; Print Collector's Quarterly 26 (1939): 82; Fine Prints of the Year, 1935; Eby. War. Provenance: Frederick Keppel & Co. A rich, beautifully wiped impression on cream-colored wove paper. Signed and annotated 'imp' and 'Edition 100' in pencil, indicating a proof printed by the artist. This is Eby's most famous etching...Category
Early 20th Century American Modern Landscape Prints
MaterialsMixed Media, Etching, Aquatint
$12,000 Sale Price31% Off - The First Wooden Temple of JupiterBy William Walcot R. E. Hon. R. I. B. A.Located in Storrs, CTThe First Wooden Temple of Jupiter or Restoration of one of the first Temples of Jupiter Capitolinus, Rome.Dickins 47. 5 1/8 x 7 1/8 (sheet 9 3/16 x 11 5...Category
Early 20th Century Modern Landscape Prints
MaterialsDrypoint, Etching, Aquatint
$400 Sale Price20% Off - From Knoedler's Window MCMXXXVBy John Taylor ArmsLocated in Storrs, CTFrom Knoedler's Window MCMXXV. 1935. Etching and Aquatint. Fletcher catalog 293 stateiv/v. Image: 5 1/16 x 4 15/16 (sheet 12/7/8 x 9 1/8). Edition 271 in this state (total edition 3...Category
1920s American Modern Landscape Prints
MaterialsAquatint, Etching
$800 Sale Price20% Off