Gold
Signed Print

Along with A Room Full Of Straw and Straw On The Left, Gold On The Right, this work relates to the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin which Hockney illustrated as part of his Illustrations For Six Fairy Tales From The Brothers Grimm. Before embarking on the series Hockney read all 239 stories in the Brothers Grimm collections and even took trips down the Rhine to research the settings of these fables. He proceeded to select six tales to focus on and produced 39 etchings, a medium he chose because it allowed him to reproduce his illustrative style of drawing. Showing an explosion of transformed straw above a gold bar, Gold recalls some of the artist’s earlier prints in which he includes text, such as Study For Rumpelstiltskin as well as unrelated works like Myself and My Heroes. In its simple composition, devoid of characters or background, the work reflects the simplicity of the way the fairy tales are told, with linear narratives and clear morals, while at the same time being injected with a sense of the magical and the mythical. Comprising 39 prints, the series was published in 1969 and became a bestselling book.