Picture Of Melrose Avenue In An Ornate Gold Frame
Signed Print

In Picture Of Melrose Avenue In An Ornate Gold Frame we see Hockney playing with the trompe l’oeil technique that characterises this series. By including ornate frames or the impression of glass, he succeeds in creating the effect of looking at an artificial collection, as with many works from the history of art, and also recalling his previous paintings such as Play Within a Play where the line between artifice and reality is deliberately troubled. Here we also see signs of his ongoing fascination with the architecture of LA, and its road signs. A head creeps out from the bottom of the frame and a prototype of his now iconic palm trees reaches up into a blue sky from behind the building. All these separate elements, from the wash of sky to the flat black of the frame showcase Hockney’s mastery of print and his keen eye for manipulating his chosen medium to play with surface and depth within the work. The result is a fictitious collection, supposedly belonging to a Hollywood movie star; Hockney is said to have been inspired by a display of frames at a shop near the Gemini print studio, as well as the ‘artificial beauty’ inherent to the LA cityscape.