David Hockney Wind (M.C.A.T 132) For Sale

Wind is a signed lithograph from David Hockney’s 1973 The Weather Series, which was inspired by his journey to live in the sunny California climes. Arguably, Wind is the print, truest to the original vision of the series, since it is so ground in place and American iconography: at the forefront of the print is a street sign for Melrose Avenue, symbolic of California as a place of hopes and dreams. Ironically the Melrose Avenue sign was actually situated above the acclaimed Gemini printmaking studios, where Hockney composed most of the series ‘because Los Angeles has no weather.’ Whilst the ‘left turn only’ arrow situates the viewer immediately in the freefall of the Los Angeles highway traffic.

Wind is indicative of Hockney’s layered approach to composition in a Weather Series depicting, ‘the weather drawn, not just the weather itself,’ as the viewer can gauge the ‘feeling’ of wind through the sheets of paper flying up in the gust. Infact, Hockney challenged in how he could create the visceral sense of being caught in wind, turned to 18^th Century Japanese artist, Hokusai, Ejiri in the Suruga Province, from which he was influenced by the sheets in the wind style, also referencing the ancient u-kioye woodblock print technique through a colourful pop art lens. In Wind, these pieces of paper on closer inspection reveal themselves to be reproductions of the other prints in the series, Sun, Snow, Mist and Rain, as ifthe artist is subtly making a comment on the mass production of printmaking and authenticity of artmaking.

Hockney creates a compelling portrait of ‘Wind’ immersed in a feeling of lightness and air, in which Hockney also reflects on the role of the artist and cyclical nature of art to inspire. Wind also differs from most of the Weather Series as it is a scene bathed in colour and the famed West Coast light, which gave Los Angeles the moniker, ‘City of Lights.’