Figures With Still Life
Signed Print

Seeming more like a drawing exercise than a finished print, Figures With Still Life is one of the more enigmatic works from David Hockney’s The Blue Guitar series. Here we see him experimenting with various styles of representing figures, from illustrative realism to Cubist. On the table between the two figures sits a table covered with a thick white cloth that hangs down elegantly like classical drapery. It has been set at a slant and yet a bottle, an upright plate and a wineglass sit firmly on top of it. The figure on the right, seemingly a woman, appears to cover her face with her hands, another sign of discord in this strange scene, while the man on the left holds out his hand to her, his own body obscured by sharp intersecting lines that appear to be calculations of perspective. As well as the reference to cubism in the style of the woman’s figure, the presence of Picasso is overt in the soft blue tones and the hint of a guitar in the woman’s arm. While the series is named after a poem by Wallace Stevens, the American poet was himself inspired by Picasso’s 1903 painting The Old Guitarist. Rather than illustrating the poem with this series, Hockney has chosen to make works that accompany the writing, presenting juxtaposing ideas and styles in enigmatic scenes.