Snow Without Colour
Signed Print

In Snow Without Colour we are presented with a monochrome version of Snow, Hockney’s homage to Japanese masters such as Hiroshige and Hokusai. The work forms part of the artist’s 1973 portfolio entitled The Weather series, and can be seen as a study for the finished work. And yet it is just as accomplished as the related print, exquisite in its details of a rolling landscape, a branch of a tree laden with snow, and the scholars’ rocks in the foreground that transport us back to Hockney’s photo collages of the Ryoanji temple in Kyoto. Elegantly framed on the sheet the work feels illustrative, as if it could be paired with a dark fairytale or an elegant haiku. What is perhaps most beautiful about the work though is the snow falling against the dark sky, suggesting this is a night scene, and recalling the ephemeral beauty of falling blossom that will come in the season after this. As well as referencing Japanese prints, the work can also be seen in relation to Hockney’s later work, where, upon returning to Yorkshire, he became a master of studying the effect of the seasons on the landscape around his hometown.