“I wanted to go back and see Yosemite with digital eyes. The very first time I saw it was through the lens of a camera, and I had always wanted to return and see it through the lenses of the latest technology.”
—David HockneyIn 2010, David Hockney visited Yosemite National Park equipped with a brand-new invention: the iPad. Released by Apple earlier that year, the iPad was fast becoming a popular gadget, but Hockney was one of the first to realise its full potential as an artistic tool. Relishing the immediacy of working on the device, Hockney set about creating twenty-six iPad drawings en plein air which he titled The Yosemite Suite. In doing so, Hockney asserted himself as an artist for the technological age and brought a unique and pioneering aesthetic to the Yosemite Valley, California – a region which has long served as an arena for artists to showcase their skills.
Since the mid-19th century, artists have flocked to the Yosemite Valley, attempting to capture its dramatic scenery and towering rock formations. Published in 1855 – the first widely published images of Yosemite - lithographs after Thomas Ayer's drawings highlight the beauty and expanse of the unspoilt landscape. Depictions by painters soon followed, with the Hudson River School’s Albert Bierstadt creating Merced River, Yosemite Valley (1866), which currently hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. By the mid-20th century, Yosemite had become one of America’s first designated National Parks as well as a chief source of inspiration for the photographer Ansel Adams, whose images of the region are amongst the most widely recognised.
In drawing Yosemite, Hockney actively engages with the region’s important visual history. He offers a refreshing and modern take on the iconic landscape, rendered through distinct digital brushstrokes and his trademark colourful palette. Brushes – Hockney’s favourite app to create work on at the time – allowed the artist to easily draw in situ and experiment with different types of mark making. Utilising blurring tools and different densities of line, Brushes allowed Hockney to create layered images with both depth and atmosphere. In the present work, Untitled No. 21, layers of green dots evoke the verdant foliage of the valley slopes. Thick and thin pale-yellow lines emphasise the dramatic rock-faces so characteristic of Yosemite’s landscape. Furthermore, a haze of blue in the centre of the composition subtly reveals the action of the river and waterfalls in the valley below.
Recognising the impact of scale in such a setting, Hockney was inspired to experiment with transposing his iPad drawings into large format prints: each print in The Yosemite Suite measures almost a metre by two thirds of a metre, roughly four times the size of the iPad screen on which they were produced. Like the subject they depict, the scale and vibrancy of Hockney’s Yosemite prints are eye catching, and they serve as an early example of the artist’s forays into digital art.
Provenance
Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris (label verso of frame)
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.
2010 iPad drawing in colours, printed on wove paper, with full margins. I. 81.5 x 61 cm (32 1/8 x 24 in.) S. 94.2 x 71.1 cm (37 1/8 x 27 7/8 in.) Signed, dated and numbered 15/25 in pencil, published by the artist (with his blindstamp), framed.