Herrenhauser Park, Hannover

This signed print by British artist David Hockney was issued in a limited edition of 80 in 1970 – a year which saw the first major retrospective exhibition of the much-celebrated young artist’s work at Whitechapel Gallery in London, and in various venues across Europe. Herrenhauser Park, Hannover – a scene of bucolic beauty captured in a photograph – directly recalls Hockney’s 1970 painting Le Parc Des Sources, Vichy, 1970. This painting features Hockney’s then partner Peter Schlesinger and friend Ossie Clark sitting together in a French park. Turning away from the viewer, they look out to a line of trees arranged in such a way as to make the garden appear longer. Commenting on this work, Hockney once said, ‘There’s a strong surrealist element in the painting because of the use of the false perspective, which is really what interested me. The actual trees there form a triangle, not an alley just disappearing into the distance.’ In Herrenhauser Park, Hannover, Hockney appears to take a similar interest in trees, particularly their role as features in an ornate Baroque garden. Arranged fastidiously in neat rows, the trees cast similarly ordered, almost geometric shadows. In this sense, they evoke the cross-hatching technique of many of Hockney’s etchings, some of which feature in the series Hockney And The Stage and the more abstract Some More New Prints. Abstraction is also a relevant theme in this piece: at first viewing, it is unclear whether the work is a painting or a photograph.