Office Chair, July 1988

Home made print on 6 sheets of paper
(17 x 11″ / 43 x 28 cm each)
Edition of 40 (ed. 18/40)
51 x 22″ / 129,5 x 56 cm

“I’ve always loved chairs: they have arms and legs, like people” ⁽¹⁾

David Hockney likes to explore the possibilities offered by new technologies in his work – today, the artist draws on an iPad and a computer. In February 1986, while living in California, Hockney was delighted to discover that the colour photocopier used in offices was, in his words, “a printing machine and a camera of a new kind“ ⁽²⁾, marking the beginning of Home Made Prints the artist produced in his studio in a limited number of copies. Hockney was fascinated by the autonomy and spontaneity that the photocopier gave him – unlike the print workshops, which he loved, but which required several people and a great deal of technical skill :“(…) I can work by myself (…)with great speed and responsiveness. In fact, this is the closest l’ve ever come in printing to what it’s like to paint:I can put something down, evaluate it, alter it, revise it, all in a matter of seconds.“ ⁽³⁾ This new tool enables the artist to play with ink saturation and colours, adjusting his composition as it goes along. Sometimes, as with Office Chair in 1988, he assembled sheets of paper to overcome the physical limitations of the machine. An office chair with light, supple lines is drawn, spread out over six sheets of paper placed side by side. The motif of the chair – which here may refer directly to the bureaucratic reality of the printer and is a nod to the work’s inclusion in a corporate collection – made several appearances in Hockney’s artistic output during this period. That same year, for example, he was invited by the Van Gogh Foundation to take part in the centenary of the painter’s arrival in Arles – to which he paid tribute with a painting of a chair, an echo of Van Gogh’s Chair (1888, The National Gallery, London).

⁽¹⁾ David Hockney, in Bailey, Martin, David Hockney: l’arrivée du printemps, 2015, p. 18

⁽²⁾ David Hockney, quoted in ‘The closest I’ve ever come in printing to what it’s like to paint’, Christie’s, July 6 2018

⁽³⁾ David Hockney quoted on The David Hockney Foundation