David Hockney Hotel Acatlan: First Day (M.C.A.T 269) For Sale

The story behind David Hockney’s Hotel Acatlan prints, including Hotel Acatlan: First Day, Hotel Acatlan: Second Day and Hotel Acatlan: Two Weeks Later is illustrative of the artist’s famed passion for creating art spontaneously. Hockney once humorously commented, ‘you must plan to be spontaneous.’

The three prints of a six-print series, which start with Hotel Acatlan: First Day, are a result of a trip Hockney was making to Mexico City in 1984 to attend his own exhibition, ‘Hockney Paints the Stage’ taking place at Museo Rufio Tamayo. However, his car broke down, so he was forced to make an impromptu stop at the remote Hotel Romano Angeles in Acatlan, providing the direct inspiration for the original drawings turned lithographs, which depict the hotel from his car seat in the courtyard.

The series marks new beginnings for Hockney’s visual language in many ways: the artist has stated that the series was not just ‘about a hotel,’ and the images indeed evoke Mexico in itself. His intensely bright colour palette directly references the exotic panoramic views of Mexico through lush greenery, cacti motifs and warm reddish tones evoking the desert landscape. Hockney also takes the multiple camera angles of his photographic collages and distils that into the lithograph, in this Hotel Acatlan: First Day print, the artist uses a wide lens view depicting inside and outside simultaneously, and extends it across two sheets to fit the panoramic view in. In this print, Hockney also explores his fascination with perspective and space, the image evokes an emotion as if the viewer is immersed in the area and can even ‘feel’ the scene.

Hotel Acatlan: First Day depicts a lush garden from which we, the viewer, is looking out to from a large portico that covers the scene: the portico is suspended by blue columns and wooden rays above, sunlight drips into the building from above and large cacti pots sit at the edge of the garden.

The bright, expansive colour soaks the viewer up in the image: the artwork is somehow simultaneously energetic through the vibrant colour palette and evocative of the tranquil, serene nature of the Mexican area - as if we, the viewer, are there witnessing Hockney under the sunlight creating the artwork for ourselves.