Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level C , Case MP, Shelf 330

Lightning

Print
1973 (printed and published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

David Hockney first visited California in 1964 and visited and worked there from time to time until he decided in 1978 to settle there permanently. In 1965 he worked on A Hollywood Collection, a suite of prints, with master printer Ken Tyler, who ran the printmaking studio Gemini GEL. Although he made other prints with Gemini in the years between 1965 and 1973, The Weather Series was the second major suite made there. It is in part inspired by the representation of weather in Japanese prints. This image however also suggests 18th and 19th century European depictions of landscape and weather, with overtones of the caricature style of Hogarth.


Object details

Category
Object type
Titles
  • Lightning (assigned by artist)
  • The Weather Series (series title)
Materials and techniques
Colour lithograph and screenprint on paper
Brief description
David Hockney: Lightning. One of a suite of 6 prints entitled 'The Weather Series' 1973
Physical description
a single jagged rod of lightning through the centre of the image, against a background of a stormy grey sky (single black cloud above more distant scattered smaller clouds). A low horizon, with a hilly landscape and a road winding between the hills from the centre of bottom margin to middle distance.
Dimensions
  • Sheet height: 100cm
  • Sheet width: 80.9cm
Production typeLimited edition
Copy number
50/98
Marks and inscriptions
David Hockney 73/ Lightning / 50/98 (Signed and dated in red crayon. Inscribed with title in blue crayon. Numbered in red crayon.)
Production
Catalogue Raisonné: N= Nottingham: Midland Group Galleries: 'David Hockney Prints 1954-1977.' Nottingham 1979

Attribution note: From a suite of six prints
Subject depicted
Summary
David Hockney first visited California in 1964 and visited and worked there from time to time until he decided in 1978 to settle there permanently. In 1965 he worked on A Hollywood Collection, a suite of prints, with master printer Ken Tyler, who ran the printmaking studio Gemini GEL. Although he made other prints with Gemini in the years between 1965 and 1973, The Weather Series was the second major suite made there. It is in part inspired by the representation of weather in Japanese prints. This image however also suggests 18th and 19th century European depictions of landscape and weather, with overtones of the caricature style of Hogarth.
Associated objects
Bibliographic references
  • N. 139: N: Nottingham: Midland Group Galleries: 'David Hockney Prints 1954-1977' Nottingham, 1979. Photocopies of the printing documentation are available for reference in the Departmental fies under Hockney. These show signatures of the printers involved [information taken from old paper catalogue sheets]
  • Taken from Departmental Circulation Registers: 1975
  • Print Documentation from Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, signed by Master Printer Kenneth Tyler and David Hockney Taken from Departmental Circulation Registers: 1975
Other number
N.139
Collection
Accession number
CIRC.57-1975

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Record createdMarch 21, 2008
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