DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Andalucia. Fountains, Cordova, 2004
Watercolor on paper, in two joined sheets
29 1/2 x 83 inches (74.9 x 210.8 cm)
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated 04 (lower left)
Provenance
L.A. Louver, Venice, California
Acquired from the above in 2004 by the present owner
Auction History
Sotheby’s London: 6 March 2024
Estimated: GBP 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
GBP 1,863,000 / USD 2,362,285
David Hockney’s Andalucia. Fountains, Cordova belongs to a small group of six watercolors which the artist created following a trip to Spain in January of 2004. Hockney had spent the first half of the year on a number of trips to see the rural landscapes and architectural sites across France, Spain and Italy. Later in the summer of 2004, he exhibited a group of watercolors from his trip to Spain, including the present example at the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London, which Hockney and Allen Jones co-curated. The lush garden and flowing fountain are sprawled across two sheets of paper, a format that is seen throughout Hockney’s watercolor landscapes. The perfectly arched streams cascade down the central pool, lined with a brick pathway and flowerbeds that lead onto a distant fortress wall. Reflecting his fascination with the fluid qualities of water and light, Andalucia. Fountains, Cordova wonderfully transposes a fragment of his travels into an impressively rendered large-scale painting.
“I went to every place the tourists go. I went off season, so there were not too many tourists. You should go south in winter and north in summer, as Queen Victoria did, and she was right. You get great light.”
DAVID HOCKNEY WITH THE PRESENT WORK AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY’S SUMMER EXHIBITION IN 2004
IMAGE: © ALAMY/ ARTWORK: © DAVID HOCKNEY FOUNDATION
Hockney spent the early years of the 2000s travelling and experimenting with painting landscapes in watercolor, including trips to France, Egypt, Norway and Iceland followed by Spain where the present work was created. Following this trip to Spain, he would go on to paint in Italy, creating watercolors of Lake Como, before returning to England, where he began the celebrated body of landscapes depicting the Yorkshire countryside. By the time the present work was painted, Hockney had fully immersed himself in the watercolor medium. He had begun experimenting with watercolors a few years earlier in London, but it was in the months following his move to California in the summer of 2003 that his love for the medium took full force. The nature of the paint application allowed for a sense of immediacy, unforgiving of any mistakes, and hence prompting a new mode of seeing and working. In Andalucia. Fountains, Cordova, Hockney brilliantly capitalizes on the fluid qualities of the medium, embracing the inherent ebb and flow of pigment to create a dynamic range of transparencies and sharpness. Pooling the watercolor to yield concentrated, vivid tones, he captures the cool reflections of the fountain and the glistening flowerbeds with exquisite fullness, whilst also creating areas of intricate detail indicative of his mastery.
ALCAZAR GARDENS IN CORDOBA SPAIN / IMAGE: © ROGERPIX / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Light has always been one of Hockney’s greatest artistic preoccupations, and the pursuit of different lights has been a strong factor in his motivations to travel to the various destinations around the world. Indeed, light has long been a great source of inspiration for travelling artists, such as The Hamptons for Jackson Pollock and Tangier for Henri Matisse, the streaming sunlight in Window at Tangier capturing the luminous warmth of the North African light. Hockney has long been attracted to the sun and warmth of southern Europe, the strong, undiluted light being a constant inspiration. Hockney undoubtedly visited the Gardens of the Alcázar during his trip to Cordova, a complex of gardens and orchards dating back to the 10th century, famous for their elegant fountains and ponds. In Andalucia. Fountains, Cordova, Hockney captures the tree-lined fountains with the ancient walls of the Alcázar de los Reyes Cruistianos in the distance, the blazing Spanish sun shining onto the cool fountains. Hockney painted from memory or on site, but refrained from painting from photographs, saying that “sometimes I painted from memory. Sometimes there, responding to the space. I wouldn’t look through cameras. I took a large brush and responded to the space” (David Hockney quoted in: Ibid, p. 295). Focusing on his own interpretation of the environment rather than creating a record of a place, paintings of Hockney’s travels are imbued with personal sentimentality, acting as a vessel in which his feelings and memories are held.