David Hockney 30th January, 2021 The First One For Sale

David Hockney’s 30^th January 2021, The First One refers to the first artwork he created of still life flowers in a vase, which caught his eye in the kitchen of his new Normandy located home, La Grande Coeur. The artworks began during the time of stillness and reflection in the second year of the global pandemic lockdown; these prints went on to become the series, 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures.

The idea came to Hockney when he observed the ‘low sun’ during the early part of the year hitting the flowers in his kitchen during the second half of the global lockdown. Reflecting on themes of transience, loss, renewal, reset and rebirth and the nature around him as the seasons were changing, Hockney created the artworks solely based around these still life flowers, which he sourced from the local market as the flowers weren’t in blossom at this time.

30^th January 2021, The First One features a white ceramic vase with slanted shape top, the vase is filled with a sparse bunch of flowers: white and pink tulip buds are mixed in amongst green stems and verdant leaves. The vase sits on a blue gingham tablecloth – a shadow of the vase is depicted on the tablecloth through dark blue smudging with red dots symbolising the shadow of the floral buds. The colourful flowers in the vase is juxtaposed with the background wall in a solid burgundy shade: this is how Hockney continues to depict the still life images for the rest of the series.

The simple artwork resembles the traditional still life genre but enacted on the Ipad medium, the image purposefully appears scrappy and unfinished, giving the genre a modern informality.