Less Trees Near Warter

Medium: inkjet printed computer drawing mounted on dibond
Year: 2009
Sheet: 92 3/4 x 41 1/2 inches (235.5 x 105.5 cm)
Edition: 15
Publisher: The Artist

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil

 

Executed in 2009. Less Trees Near Warter forms one of David Hockney’s innovative inkjet printed computer drawings. Rendered on a grand scale, across a tall, narrow composition, the present work is composed of a vast brooding sky and a juxtaposing shock of green and red which delineates a barren earth beneath felled trees. The large landscape takes its title from a scene near the village of Warter, between Bridlington and York in the U.K. and is set during the changing of seasons. The painting is dominated by a large expanse of naked pink country roads criss-crossed with tire tracks and dense stacks of a recently flattened forest. A single blue roofed house is visible along the roadside and indicates signs of human activity and habitation. The central image of the work is a triangular patch of bare earth, red and raw like a wound which stretches toward the horizon. Two faint plumes of smoke wind upwards from a fire that smoulders. In the shallow foreground to the extreme left of the work stands a sketched white outline of a road sign detailing the nearest towns, Warter and Huggate. The few beech trees that do remain standing are barren and devoid of life.

Created two years after the famous Bigger Trees Near Warter (2007), the present work offers the viewer a strikingly varied perspective of the Yorkshire landscape by charting the seasonal changes in the woodland of Warter. During this period Hockney was inspired by natural landscapes, particularly trees which make up a large part of his stylistic oeuvre. ’[Trees are] like faces…every one is different. Nature doesn’t repeat itself … You have to observe carefully; there is a randomness’ (David Hockney cited in: Charlotte Higgins, ‘Hockney’s big gift to the Tate: a 40ft landscape of Yorkshire’s winter trees’, The Guardian, 8 April, 2008, online).

Hockney is perhaps best known for his bright swimming pools, still lives, leafy landscapes, as well as portraits, many of which were undertaken during his time in California. While the artist has lived in Los Angeles since the late ‘70s, he continually returns to the UK and spends increasing amounts of time in his native Yorkshire, capturing the local landscape through his ipad drawings. Hockney began exploring digital platforms as early as 1985, working with early computer programs and eventually switching over to iPhones and IPads to create his distinctive sharply saturated works. ‘Drawing on glass means that you can draw forever… it’s a new medium’, (David Hockney cited in: David Hockney marvels at a new medium, the art of ‘drawing on glass’, The Guardian, 11 November 2016, online video).

 

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Auction Results

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Seoul Auction: 24 November 2025
Estimated: KRW 480,000,000 – 800,000,000
KRW 566,400,000 / USD 385,150

REPEAT SALE

Phillips London: 20 January 2022
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 88,200 / USD 120,165

REPEAT SALE

Phillips London: 12 September 2019
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 52,500 / USD 64,730

DAVID HOCKNEY
Less Trees Near Warter, 2009
inkjet printer computer drawing on paper
Signed, dated and numbered 14/15 on the recto

Phillips London: 20 January 2022
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 88,200 / USD 120,165

Sotheby’s London: 3 March 2021
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 52,920 / USD 74,630

DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Less Trees Near Warter, 2009
inkjet printed computer drawing mounted on dibond
Signed, dated 09 and numbered 12/15