David Hockney Bora Bora (M.C.A.T. 158) For Sale

This elegant and simple lithograph was created by Hockney in 1979. The print depicts the titular ‘Bora Bora’, an island in the heart of French Polynesia which is famous for its unwavering beauty. Hockney captures the warm breeze and lapping waves through a series of expressive lines. Hockney achieved the loose, Matisse-esque brushstrokes through dipping his brush into the diluted lithographic ink (tusche). This was the same technique Toulouse Lautrec used, allowing both artists to work loosely and expressively. Hockney captured the difference between land and water, not only through colour, but through a variety of lines shapes. Hockney commentated on the difficulty of capturing water, saying “It is a formal problem to represent water, to describe water, because it can be anything. It can be any colour, it’s movable, and it has no set visual description.” His Lithograph of Water series from 1978 showcases his earlier experimentation with depicting water.

The print was part of the Tyler Graphics portfolio 1979, a series of lithographs which all featured a similar minimalist style of fauvism, echoing the style of canonical artists such as Henri Matisse and Henri Toulouse Lautrec. This portfolio encapsulates the way in which Hockney continuously experimented with different mediums and styles across the decades of his artistic oeuvre. Hockney spoke of his passion for experimentation, saying “I love new mediums … I think mediums can turn you on, they can excite you: they always let you do something in a different way”. This print represents Hockney’s passion for experimentation, especially when compared to his other landscapes of the rolling hills of Yorkshire or Yosemite. This print stands out from the rest of the portfolio, as it is the only landscape and is arguably the most sparse and abstract of them all. The rest of the series returns to the seminal Hockney subject of tender depictions of friends, including Henry Geldzahler and Joe Macdonald, both of whom are recurring muses within Hockney’s work.