The Yosemite Suite 1
Signed Print

After decades of experimenting with various print techniques – from etching and lithography to screen printing and photocopying – in 2010 Hockney’s practice was once again transformed by the arrival of Apple’s iPad. With this new tool the artist could make quick digital drawings on a larger scale than the iPhone had previously afforded him, and it became an accessible way to make prints based on his sketches. Keen to test out the iPad en plein air, Hockney took it to one of the world’s most famous national parks, California’s Yosemite, where he proceeded to make over 24 drawings which became digital prints. The Yosemite Suite 1 sees the artist looking out at the famous Ahwahnee Hotel, positioned against a backdrop of steep mountains and populated with passersby below. Despite the flatness of the digital medium, Hockney manages to incorporate depth and texture into the natural landscape he is depicting; washes of colour are contrasted with crude rounded lines that do not try to disguise their digital nature. In this way Hockney engages with the sublimity of this landscape and brings it back down to earth, making it accessible in a way that landscape painters of the past could never achieve.