Mist
Signed Print

Featuring LA’s iconic palm trees, Mist is a quietly beautiful work from David Hockney’s 1973 The Weather series. Receding into the distance the trees frame a low flat roofed building at the left of the composition while the mist of the title suffuses the scene in a soft pink and grey glow. Here we see the influence of Japanese prints by masters such as Hiroshige and Hokusai on Hockney, who had visited Japan in 1971. Hockney was particularly taken by the woodblock printing tradition and many of the prints in this series reference the Ukiyo-e style. The work also has a close European influence however, in Monet’s painting of poplar trees along the River Epte, and with this in mind we can see the importance of Impressionism on Hockney’s landscapes – from LA to Yorkshire – which are perhaps most concerned with the play of light and time on space. Dating to 1973, The Weather series was produced in collaboration with master printers Gemini G.E.L. of LA whom Hockney had worked with before on portfolios such as A Hollywood Collection and with whom he make the famous Friends series.