Plate from the Blue Guitar Series of 1976

• limited edition etching and aquatint numbered 78/200 in the margin lower left
• Signed margin lower right
• 34.5 x 42.5 cm (13.5 x 16.75in)
• Framed (size 74 x 78.5cm)
• Condition: Excellent

David Hockney

Born in 1937 at Bradford. Between 1953 and 1957 he studied at the Bradford School of Art. A conscientious objector, he spent his National Service working in a hospital until 1959. He attended the Royal College of Art, London in 1959, and graduated with the Gold Medal of his year in 1962. Here he met R. B. Kitaj and other founders of English Pop Art.

From 1960 he began showing in the Young Contemporaries exhibitions at the RBA Galleries. In 1961 he was represented at the Paris Biennale and awarded the Guinness Award for Etching. In 1964 he settled in Los Angeles and painted his first swimming-pool pictures.

He experimented with a variety of printmaking styles including etching, lithography and serigraphy. In 1973 Aldo Crommelynck explained to David Hockney, a technique for drawing in layers in order to produce coloured etchings. This led to the series of 20 etchings inspired by Wallace Steven's poem "The Man with the Blue Guitar".

During the mid-seventies Hockney abandoned to concentrate on drawing and print-making. In the eighties he began to make collages from Polaroid photographs.

Several series of etchings and lithographs have established Hockney at the forefront of modern British Art. A Rake's Progress, a series of 16 etchings inspired conceived as a contemporary version of William Hogarth's work. There were Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy, Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, and The Blue Guitar.