DAVID HOCKNEY RA (b.1937)
A Wooded Landscape
from Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, 1969
etching
61.7 x 44.8 cm
edition of 100 Portfolio and 100 Book-A
Hockney spent most of 1969 working on a series of 39 etchings to accompany six folklore tales gathered by the Brothers Grimm in Germany and first published in 1812.
This etching illustrates the story Fundevogel; the tale of a little boy discovered in a tree by a forester and raised alongside his own daughter.
The landscape that Hockney has depicted sets the scene for the tale and was based on an old photograph of vineyards on the Moselle River. This etching shows the influence of landscape etchings by Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) and Japanese prints on Hockney’s work of this time.
Aside from the editioned portfolios (which were produced in association with Kasmin Gallery) a miniature book was published by Petersburg Press/ Oxford University Press in 1970, which sold more than 150,000 copies.
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 10 September 2019, where purchased.
Exhibited
Welbeck, Harley Gallery, Coast, Country, City, August - November 2021.