“I realised to show the full arrival of spring, you have to start in the winter and go into the summer a bit, and then you see all the differences and all the rich things that happen to each tree”
—David HockneyDavid Hockney’s seminal series, the Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, is an epic of nature that documents both the subtlety and the drama of winter’s transformation into spring. The series, which consists of sixty-one iPad drawings, was conceived in anticipation of the artist’s landmark 2012 retrospective, A Bigger Picture, at the Royal Academy in London. In preparation, the artist returned to his late-mother’s Bridlington home in 2006, so that he could experience and record five Yorkshire springs, focusing on the nearby Woldgate Woods. Commencing on New Year’s Day, 2011, and culminating in early June, the Arrival of Spring sequence chronicles how winter’s icy roads, violet mists and frosted branches gradually bloom into the luscious greens, clear skies and blossoming flora of late spring.
Left: Claude Monet, Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer), 1890/91, Art Institute of Chicago. Image: Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Arthur M. Wood, Sr. in memory of Pauline Palmer Wood
Right: Claude Monet, Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning, 1891, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Image: Courtesy of Getty's Open Content ProgramThe series builds on a canonical history of artists who have embarked on sustained studies of specific landscapes at different times of day, month and year. For instance, the Arrival of Spring series draws close parallels to Claude Monet’s forensic observation of the shifting light and changing atmosphere of the Giverny landscape. Similarly, Hockney’s seasonal sequence recalls John Constable’s sustained focus on the gently rolling hills of the Dedham Vale. Like both Monet and Constable, Hockney worked en plein air. This plays a central part in the key preoccupation underlying all three groups of works: the transience of light, colour, the changing of seasons and the passing of time. This enduring concern engenders the fleeting light and seasonal atmosphere to become as much a part of each composition’s subject as the landscape itself.
Left: John Constable, Dedham Vale: Morning, circa 1811. Image: Bridgeman Images
Right: John Constable, Dedham Vale from Langham, circa 1812, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Image: © Ashmolean Museum / Bridgeman ImagesThe Arrival of Spring series was one of Hockney’s earliest forays into iPad drawing. The newly-released iPad enabled a new sense of immediacy – he worked quickly and intensely, building up layers with a highly saturated palette and a wide variety of painterly effects. Despite the digital nature of the medium, the final, physical artwork remained in the forefront of Hockney’s mind. He would experiment with printing his drawings directly from the iPad in different variations. Once the scale of the printed images was settled, this directly influenced the mark making and composition of Hockney’s iPad draughtsmanship. The final prints were produced on large-scale paper and arranged as a grand narrative cycle at the Royal Academy’s exhibition. Ever the innovator, Hockney used this pioneering technique to reinvent and revitalise the most traditional of subjects.
Provenance
Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2014Artist 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.
Property of a Private UK Collector
35
The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) - 19 May
2011
iPad drawing in colours, printed on wove paper, with full margins.
I. 127.4 x 95.5 cm (50 1/8 x 37 5/8 in.)
S. 140.2 x 105.7 cm (55 1/4 x 41 5/8 in.)
Signed, dated and numbered 14/25 in pencil, published by the artist, framed.
Estimate
£80,000 - 120,000 ♠
Sold for £100,800
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
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Anne Schneider-Wilson
Senior International Specialist, Editions
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Evening & Day Editions
London Auction 18 - 19 January 2023
168
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300
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