David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring

8 May - 12 July 2014

Annely Juda Fine will be exhibiting 16 iPad drawings from David Hockney's series The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011. These bold and striking iPad drawings have been printed on paper in an edition of 25.  A further four prints have been printed in large format and mounted on dibond in an edition of 10. 

In addition to the iPad drawings the film Woldgate Woods, November 26th 2010 will be shown: 9 digital videos will be showing synchronised on 9 video monitors showing a slow progress through a snowy wooded landscape in East Yorkshire.

Showing on the 3rd floor gallery will be a group of charcoal drawings showing 5 separate views:

"I decided to do an arrival of spring in black and white (and greys) at the beginning of 2013. A change from the color I had used in 2011. I almost gave up on them a few times, but persevered with them, and finished about the end of May 2013. The Chinese say black and white contains colour, and so it can.

They are five separate views of Woldgate, and with each one I had to wait for the changes to happen. Some were too close to the previous ones and I realised I was being impatient. I had to wait for a bigger change. I thought it was an exciting thing to do. It made me look much harder at what I was drawing.

The totems were drawn immediately on my return from my exhibition in Cologne in November 2012. I drove out on Woldgate and noticed it had been deliberately sawn through. A bit before this I was sent photographs of graffiti that had been painted on it. Annoying but I thought the winter would take them away. I was at first very sad and went to bed for two days a bit depressed by the vandalism. Then I decided to draw it. I had had a very minor stroke that had kept me in London, and the first drawing after it took me two days to draw (the days are a lot shorter in November).

The minor stroke only manifested itself in my speech. I found I couldn't finish sentences, and although it came back after about a month I find now I talk a lot less. But it did not affect my drawing, I think it even made me concentrate more. I thought, well I'm OK so long as I can draw, I don't really need to say much anymore; I thought, I've said enough already.

When I sent the drawings to California Gregory said straight away he thought there was a difference he could see. Anyway all I did for the next six months was draw with charcoal. I made about twenty-five portrait drawings that took two days each to do, and kept up The Arrival of Spring drawings, which I was very keen to show in San Francisco in my Bigger Exhibition at the end of last year.

The color prints are from the iPad. These were drawn in 2011 and first shown at the Royal Academy in 2012, and so I have made just small editions of them. Some took two or three days to draw, and they were all drawn knowing they would be printed bigger. They were deliberately made for printing."

David Hockney, March 2014