Four Flowers In A Vase
Signed Print

This 1998 etching sees Hockney returning to perhaps his most long running subject, that of flowers. Here four stems are placed in an indistinct vase, which complements the flowers themselves, fading as they are into the inky black background. The flowers, with their wide disc-like flowerheads, recall van Gogh’s sunflowers in their arrangement and affect, evoking as they do an air of melancholy that is heightened by the darkness of the etching. The background is a beautiful mess of cross hatched marks which recalls the still lifes of Morandi as well as prints by Hogarth who Hockney first took inspiration from while at art college. The table the vase sits on is a simple plane of lines, its stripes of white offering some relief in the gloom of this scene. In this print we see Hockney playing with a number of different textures, experimenting with the limits of the etching plate to imitate the canvas or the page. At times the style becomes almost pointillist as he introduces a grid like or spotted texture to create the flowerheads. In other places we are more aware of the presence of the artist’s hands as the cross hatching becomes gestural and full of expression.