Piscine on Sprayed Blue Paper with Green Top (Paper Pool 24): Paper Pool work by David Hockney

  • Piscine on sprayed blue paper with green top (Paper Pool 24), 1978

    Piscine on sprayed blue paper with green top (Paper Pool 24), 1978

    Coloured and pressed paper pulp, 72 x 85.5

    Unique work

    ©David Hockney

    Back to: Paper Pool

     

    David Hockney's Piscine on Sprayed Blue Paper with Green Top, Paper Pool 24, 1978 continues his exploration of the swimming pool as both a geometric form and a constantly changing natural subject. Created in coloured, pressed paper pulp in collaboration with Kenneth Tyler at Tyler Graphics, the composition is dominated by a vibrant turquoise pool viewed from the end of a striking yellow diving board. A deep green backdrop and subtle violet border frame the scene, while the textured surface of the handmade paper gives the water a luminous quality that changes with the light.

     

    Unlike many earlier Paper Pools, the bold contrast between the yellow diving board, vivid blue water and dark green surroundings heightens the work's visual intensity. Hockney uses simplified forms and saturated colour to direct the viewer's attention towards the pool itself, allowing the intricate patterns within the paper pulp to evoke ripples, reflections and movement. Widely regarded as a unique work, Piscine on Sprayed Blue Paper with Green Top, Paper Pool 24 exemplifies Hockney's ability to merge printmaking, papermaking and painting into a single innovative artistic process.

  • "It wasn't the pool itself that interested me; it was the water and the transparency. I realized that the dancing lines are on the surface, they're not underneath it."

     

    - David Hockney

    Throughout the Paper Pools series, Hockney reduced the swimming pool to its essential geometric elements while allowing colour and texture to create visual complexity. In Piscine on Sprayed Blue Paper with Green Top, the crisp architectural lines of the pool contrast with the irregular patterns of the handmade paper, demonstrating his fascination with balancing order and spontaneity within a single composition.