Flowers Made Of Paper And Black Ink
Signed Print

This striking still life appears to be a monochrome version of Coloured Flowers Made of Paper and Ink, in which an elegant glass vase holds six flowers angled away from each other in a feeling of discord that seems to refuse the harmony of a bouquet. Now rendered in black and white the composition becomes much harsher, and perhaps more gothic, the grid of the background becoming almost overbearing, the pencils in the foreground losing their childlike charm and becoming dark silhouettes. The white space of the table becomes much needed as the black ink crowds the composition. Here we see Hockney playing with the medium of lithography to achieve two very striking effects and to challenge our preconceptions of the still life with flowers as a genre. Gone is the soft beauty of the natural world and instead we are faced with harsh graphic detail that recalls some of the artist’s ​​Illustrations For Six Fairy Tales From The Brothers Grimm or the darkness of the prints in the A Rake’s Progress series. 50 years after this print was made Hockney continues to produce studies of flowers, captivated as he is by their ephemeral beauty and their elegance. Across painting, printmaking and even digital drawing, he continues to bring these delicate arrangements to life.