Lot 76
DAVID HOCKNEY (BRITISH 1937-2026) §
POOL MADE WITH PAPER AND BLUE INK FOR BOOK (MCA TOKYO 234; TYLER 269)
Auction: 13 October 2026 from 13:00 BST
Description
lithograph printed in colours, 1980, from Paper Pools, signed in pencil, dated, numbered 43/1000 (total edition includes 100 artist's proofs), with the printer and publisher's blindstamp, Tyler Graphics Ltd., New York, on Arches Cover mould-made paper, unframed
Dimensions
sheet: 26.5cm x 22.8cm (10 1/2in x 9in)
Footnote
Pool made with Paper and Blue Ink for Book epitomises the imagery of sunlit, affluent and carefree southern California for which David Hockney is, arguably, most celebrated. He was born in Bradford in 1937 and studied at Bradford School of Art. Recognition first came whilst a student at the Royal College of Art in London between 1959 and 1962. After an association with the emerging Pop Art movement in the British capital in the early 1960s, Hockney moved to Los Angeles in 1964. The open spaces, bright light and sensuous urban lifestyle of the region influenced his work and were explored through the motif of its numerous visually striking outdoor, private swimming pools.
Hockney made his first lithographs whilst training in Bradford, but his first major series using the technique was that of A Hollywood Collection, of 1964. He began the Paper Pools series in 1978, using coloured and pressed paper pulp. They were based on the intense study and technical challenge of depicting the movement of water and the effect of light upon and through it. As Hockney explained:
In the swimming pool pictures, I had become interested in the more general problem of painting the water, finding a way to do it, an interesting formal problem, really, apart from its subject matter; 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 quoted in Richard Lloyd, Hockney Printmaker, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2014, p.29)
In Pool made with Paper and Blue ink for Book a deceptively sophisticated composition sees the diving board set at an oblique angle along the top of the image, its shadow distorted through the breeze-blown, rippling water to fall on the pool’s side and floor. Patterning, of tiles and upon the water’s surface, is combined with a high-pitched palette which relays not only heat but the careful maintenance of the surrounding garden, as signified by the glimpse of clipped lawn. The viewer is invited to imagine the feeling of heat on the soles of their feet as they prepare to dive and the sensation of cool relief when disrupting the water on entry into the pool. Even the lower edge of the plate undulates in parallel with the movement of the water.
As Kenneth E. Tyler has explained, this work comes from a limited edition which was printed for the special-edition book Paper Pools, by David Hockney, edited by Nikos Stangos and published in 1980 by Thames & Hudson. Lithographs by David Hockney are held in numerous UK public collections, including Aberdeen Art Gallery, Government Art Collection and Victoria & Albert Museum, London.