David Hockney - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 19, 2022 | Phillips

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  • A vast, brooding sky hangs over a landscape of barren earth and felled trees in Less Trees Near Warter. The dark red of the harvested forest starkly contrasts the lush green countryside of Hockney’s Yorkshire home county. One of the artist’s largest computer drawings, the grand scale and narrow format accentuate the immensity of the landscape. What once would have been a tranquil wilderness is interrupted by signs of man-made intervention – two naked country roads, criss-crossed with tire tracks, intersect the image and delineate an area of de-forestation. The rich, demanding red creates a gaping wound in the otherwise flourishing terrain, dictating a specific change in the landscape.


    Less Trees Near Warter takes its name from a scene near the village of Warter, near Bridlington, where one of the artist’s residences is located. While based in Los Angeles, since the late 1970’s Hockney has continued to return to his native countryside to capture the local surrounds. Particularly interested in trees, Hockney has tracked their changes through the seasons with various series of works. This edition follows the artist’s largest ever work to date, Bigger Trees Near Warter (2007), which illustrates the trees surrounding Bridlington just before the arrival of spring, when tree leaves are starting to sprout. The fifty-panel composition was produced for the 2007 Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. For Bigger Trees Near Warter and the subsequent computer and iPad works, Hockney worked en-plein-air; this innovative method resulted in highly emotive imagery.  
    '[Trees] are the largest manifestation of the life-force we see. No two trees are the same, like us.'
    —David Hockney 

    • Provenance

      Galerie Lelong, Paris
      Private Collection, France

    • Artist Biography

      David Hockney

      David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most well-known and celebrated artists of the
      20th and 21st centuries. He works across many mediums, including painting, collage,
      and more recently digitally, by creating print series on iPads. His works show semi-
      abstract representations of domestic life, human relationships, floral, fauna, and the
      changing of seasons.

      Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal
      Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many
      other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90
      million.

       
      View More Works

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Less Trees Near Warter

2009
Inkjet printed computer drawing in colours, on wove paper flush-mounted to Alu-Dibond support (as issued).
237 x 106.4 cm (93 1/4 x 41 7/8 in.)
Signed, dated and numbered 14/15 in pencil, published by the artist, framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 

Sold for £88,200

Contact Specialist

Rebecca Tooby-Desmond
Specialist, Head of Sale, Editions
T +44 207 318 4079
M +44 7502 417366
rtooby-desmond@phillips.com

Robert Kennan
Head of Editions, Europe,
T +44 207 318 4075
M +44 7824 994 784
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Anne Schneider-Wilson
Senior Specialist, Editions
T +44 207 318 4042
M +44 7760 864 748
aschneider-wilson@phillips.com

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 19-20 January 2022