David Hockney 24th February 2021, Red, Yellow and Purple Flowers on a Blue Tablecloth For Sale

David Hockney’s 24^th February 2021, Yellow and Purple Flowers on a Blue Tablecloth is a digital print depicting a still life of flowers in a vase. Part of Hockney’s digital series, 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures, which consistently charted a vase of flowers across dates, weeks and months in the kitchen of his Normandy home. Merely making minor adjustments of colour, line and form, Hockney uses these still life artworks to question the relationship between artist, viewer and perspective as well as the passages of time.

Depicted in a transparent glass vase, this is a blooming bunch of flowers with verdant green stems, and pink, red, yellow bulbs. The vibrant flowers are the focus of the image yet the viewer’s gaze is also drawn to the vivid blue gingham tablecloth: as if bold shadows are reflecting off the vase, bright blue strips are drawn at angles onto the gingham tablecloth. The flowers, similarly to the other artworks in the series, are situated against a solid burgundy background wall.

‘Shadows sometimes people don’t see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew that meant it was sunny.’  

Created as a three-dimensional image from a two-dimensional Ipad screen, Hockney illustrates his mastery of line and form, with an artwork so real the viewer can ‘feel’ the flowers themselves.