Sunflower (Paper Pool 1): Unique hand-coloured pressed paper pulp by David Hockney

  • Sunflower, Paper Pools 1, 1978

    Sunflower, Paper Pools 1, 1978

    Unique hand-coloured pressed paper pulp, on yellow TGL handmade paper

    42 x 32 in : 106.7 x 81.3 cm, Estimated varient edition of 17 (unknown)

    Published by Tyler Graphics Ltd.

    ©David Hockney

    BACK TO: PAPER POOLS

     

    David Hockney's Sunflower (Paper Pool 1), is one of the most distinctive works from his celebrated Paper Pools series, combining the artist's fascination with colour, papermaking and experimental printmaking. Executed in coloured, pressed paper pulp, the composition places a single sunflower against a soft yellow background. The flower's vivid red petals surround a warm ochre centre punctuated with brown dots, while four stylised green leaves in varying tones frame a simple white vase below. Subtle speckled shading and an orange cast shadow give the vase depth, creating a composition that is both bold and remarkably simplified. Like many works in the Paper Pools series, Sunflower (Paper Pool 1) demonstrates Hockney's ability to reduce familiar subjects to striking arrangements of colour, texture and form.

     

    Unlike a traditional editioned print, Sunflower (Paper Pool 1) exists as a series of unique paper pulp variants, each handmade rather than mechanically reproduced. Auction records and exhibition catalogues have documented at least seventeen individual variants, identified by lettered designations, although the total number produced has not been definitively established. Because every variant was formed individually using coloured paper pulp, no two examples are exactly alike, making each work a unique object despite sharing the same underlying composition. This distinctive production process is one of the defining characteristics of David Hockney's Paper Pools series and contributes to its significance within his wider body of graphic works.

  • “Finally, I realised, because I had these buckets full of blue and green, if this was paint and I was doing a painting, I wouldn't have the nerve to just throw it around like this and pour it on.”

     

    - David Hockney

    During the late 1970s, Hockney increasingly pushed the boundaries of traditional printmaking by experimenting with coloured, pressed paper pulp in collaboration with master printer Kenneth Tyler at Tyler Graphics. Rather than relying solely on ink printed onto paper, Hockney used coloured paper fibres as the artistic medium itself, creating richly textured works that blur the distinction between printmaking, papermaking and painting. This innovative approach allowed him to explore colour, depth and surface in entirely new ways, resulting in the unique Paper Pools series.