DAVID HOCKNEY
Gladioli with Two Oranges, 1996
Oil on canvas
26×32 inches (65.4 x 81.2 cm)
Signed, titled and dated July 1996 on the reverse
Provenance
Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Acquired from the above by the late owner in 1997
Auction History
Sotheby’s London: 29 June 2021
Estimated: GBP 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
GBP 4,219,500 / USD 5,841,755
Gladioli with Two Oranges depicts a sprightly bunch of burgundy flowers bursting from a rounded glass vase, with a rich color pop of orange from two casually placed pieces of fruit. Rendered in short horizontal brushstrokes of vibrant cerulean, the enigmatic background denies specificity of time, place and scene. Yet though the background remains completely abstracted, the attention given to the geometric planes, tonal gradation, and accompanying shadows beneath the pot restores our mind’s ability to recognize three-dimensionality in direct association with our own experience of receiving such a joyous arrangement. Throughout the picture plane, Hockney’s application of color forms a remarkably strategic tool to generate depth in an otherwise flattened composition. By adding a touch of dark paint to the respective burgundy, orange, green, and blue hues, Hockney adds depth while keeping his hues consistent. The result is a simplified and pared-down color palette that offers a purist depiction of the scene. In reducing the color palette to a limited number of colors and shades, Hockney directs his artistic curiosity and painterly inventiveness towards other variables such as space and form. Here, Hockney dispenses with traditional perspective and flattens the background to emphasize the objecthood of the flower and fruit as the main subjects of the composition. Hockney felt that it was an elemental part of an artist’s practice to be able to render the soft lines and volumes contained in the form of a flower with clarity and authenticity – not necessarily a mimetic type of authenticity, but rather of the kind championed first by the Impressionist painters, where the light and color of any given moment can differ drastically from the next; where the same object is constantly shifting and changing right in front of us. Hockney realized that in depicting a simple bouquet of flowers, there was an infinite number of ways that he could do so. Gladioli with Two Oranges is therefore more about the process of painting a still-life, than about the record of the object itself.
DAVID HOCKNEY PHOTOGRAPHED IN HIS STUDIO IN 1984
IMAGE: © YANN GAMBLIN/ PARIS MATCH VIA GETTY IMAGES
The present work most importantly signifies Hockney’s momentous undertaking of traditional subject matter – the venerated genre of the still life – at the height of his artistic powers, when he must have finally deemed himself ready and worthy to encounter his heroes and predecessors, including Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet and Johannes Vermeer. In its exploration of experimental still life painting, Gladioli with Two Oranges invokes not only a centuries-old art historical tradition, but also a motif that is of central importance within Hockney’s own oeuvre. Still life painting first captured Hockney’s interest in the 1960s, and served as a focus for a number of early works; from there, through the precise realism of the artist’s 1970s painting, to the colorful and imaginative abstraction of the present work and other 1980s paintings, the still life genre has allowed Hockney to continually refresh and explore his creative vision through familiar subject matter. Describing the draw of still life painting, the artist reflects: “I think every artist who deals with the visible world must come back to them. You begin to see how many choices you can make in even these simple things right in front of you. How exciting they are” (David Hockney, quoted in: Piet de Jonge, ‘Interview with David Hockney’, in: Exh. Cat., Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, David Hockney: Paintings and Photographs of Paintings, 1995, p. 34)
David Hockney, 30 Sunflowers, 1996, Private Collection
Artwork: © David Hockney
Hockney’s intense occupation with his still-life series is a testament to how much he enjoys the genre. The pleasure of painting is an essential element of his work.
“I think anyone who makes pictures loves it, it is a marvelous thing to dip a brush into paint and make marks on anything, even on a bicycle, the feel of a thick brush full of paint coating something. Even now, I could spend the whole day painting a door just one flat color.”
Throughout art history, flowers have remained a traditional focus for all painters from the Dutch Old Masters to the Post-Impressionist masters and to Pop art innovators. Hockney’s purist depiction of six purple violets clearly pays homage to the master of still-life and landscape, Vincent van Gogh. The work draws visual reference to van Gogh’s dazzling Sunflowers, which was painted a century prior to Hockney’s still life.
“I’ve always had quite a passion for Van Gogh, but certainly from the early seventies it grew a lot, and it’s still growing. I became aware of how wonderful [his paintings] really were. Somehow, they became more real to me…it is only recently they’ve really lived for me.”
The background is perhaps the most painterly element of the painting. The brushstrokes are vivid and clear. They function to close the space between background and foreground, flattening the image and dispensing with the aura of illusion. The vase could be resting on a windowsill or a tabletop. Like Monet, Hockney frees color from pictorial veracity and allows us to enjoy it purely as an impression or emotion.
Throughout his remarkable career, David Hockney has successfully merged a deep appreciation for and awareness of art historical precedent with an unwavering desire to push the boundaries of contemporary art through his own, utterly unique painterly vision. Used to remarkable effect in Gladioli with Two Oranges, this tension between tradition and innovation has, over the past sixty years, distinguished Hockney as amongst the foremost artists of the contemporary age. As seen in Gladioli with Two Oranges, the still life, one of the most traditional genres of painting, becomes Hockney’s template upon which he subverts traditional perspective and notions of depth while trying to depict his own idiosyncratic reality. Gladioli with Two Oranges is a glowing exaltation of light, space, and color refracted through the lens of art history while suffused with personal meaning and transformation – manifesting the supreme quintessence of Hockney’s artistic output that powerfully establishes him as one of the greatest painters of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.