The Yosemite Suite 12
Signed Print

A bright pink path cuts through an acid green meadow bordered by tall fir trees. In the distance the silhouette of Yosemite’s famous Half Dome mountain is discernible, its steep face in grey and purple shade. The sky overhead is blue and sunlight fills this scene of quiet grandeur. And yet while the majesty of the natural landscape is the focus of the work, with the Yosemite Suite Hockney also approaches it with a playful eye, subverting our expectations of colour and perspective. Thanks to the iPad, with which these drawings were made, he was able to select unlikely shades such as this hot pink, and experiment with contrasts that would have been more difficult to achieve in a watercolour or lithograph. Made in the same year that Apple released the iPad, these works show how this new digital tool revolutionised Hockney’s printmaking practice. After the success of the Yosemite Suite he went on to create many more digital series including The Arrival of Spring in 2011 and Yosemite – Bigger which saw the artist return to the national park with the intention of creating works that could be printed at a monumental scale.