Blue Hang Cliff
from Some New Prints

Medium: Lithograph with screen-print in colors on Arches 88 paper
Year: 1993
Image: 21×27 inches (53.3 x 68.6 cm)
Sheet: 23×30 inches (58.4 x 76.2 cm)
Edition: 68
Artist’s Proofs: 14
Publisher: Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
Literature: Gemini 1604, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (335)

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil with the publisher’s blindstamp and inkstamp on reverse

In Blue Hang Cliff, David Hockney upends traditional linear perspective in favor of a dynamic spatial experience. Set against a white paper void, the Cubist-inspired landscape is structurally anchored by two tall, architectural forms that flank the composition: to the left, a green and yellow column; to the right, an arching burnt-orange and ochre pillar. As one’s eye moves toward the center, they encounter a rhythmic push and pull of forms, textures and hues. Mottled cobalt blues evoking rolling sea waters, spiky pink masses, curving green lines and black cavernous voids collide across a textured, cross-hatched terrain. These surfaces, though distinctly abstract, remain evocative of nature. By blending organic textures with synthetic, man-made distortions, Hockney delivers a fantastical reimagining of the seaside cliffs that have long populated our art historical of landscape, inviting the viewer to visually navigate the composition as if exploring a coastal cove.

Blue Hang Cliff is part of Hockney’s Some New Prints series, a collection of works that mark a significant milestone in the artist’s lifelong investigation into human perception. Diverging from the observational realism seen in his early portraits of Celia Birtwell or light-refracting swimming pools, this suite fragments space into quasi-Cubist, theatrical configurations. The portfolio’s visual language was heavily informed by Hockney’s contemporary stage designs for the 1992 Royal Opera House production of Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, where the artist transformed a static stage into a dynamic visual universe using dramatic, exaggerated shapes and exuberant textures. Described by Hockney as “internal landscapes”, these works rely on a hybrid of traditional lithography and innovative screenprinting techniques to achieve their vibrant richness, freeing the viewer’s gaze to wander through space, memory and chromatic form.

Auction Results

Christie’s New-York: 19 July 2022
Estimated: USD 12,000 – 18,000
USD 25,200

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Blue Hang Cliff, from Some New Prints, 1993
Lithograph with screen-print in colors on Arches 88 paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 46/68

Phillips New-York: 21 April 2022
Estimated: USD 10,000 – 15,000
USD 37,800

DAVID HOCKNEY
Blue Hang Cliff, 1993
Lithograph and screen-print in colors, on wove paper
Signed, dated and numbered 20/68 in pencil

Sotheby’s London: 16 March 2021
Estimated: GBP 6,000 – 8,000
GBP 25,200

DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Blue Hang Cliff (MCA Tokyo 335), 1993
Lithograph and screen-print in colors on Arches wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 48/68