Man Reading Stendahl
Signed Print

Reduced to a handful of lines and fragmented, the figure in Hockney’s Man Reading Stendhal recalls Picasso's Cubist portraits. His eyes lowered to read an unmarked book, he sits in an armchair on a fuzzy blue rug. Behind him, as if plastered to the wall, are pages of text. His face is mottled, as are other coloured parts of the work, recalling the texture of old fashioned composition notebooks. One of the more playful works in the Home Made Prints series, Man Reading Stendahl is a joyful experiment with style and technique that marks a significant departure from the etchings and lithographs of his earlier work. With the purchase of an office photocopier in 1986 Hockney was able to find a new freedom in printmaking; where before he was reliant on assistants and workshops, with the machine he could add layers, play with texture and scale, and produce digital print editions all by himself. Speaking of his newfound technique the artist said, “I can work with great speed and responsiveness. In fact this is the closest I’ve ever come in printing to what it’s like to paint: I can put something down, evaluate it, alter it, revise it, reexamine it, all in a matter of seconds”.