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This etching from David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm portfolio pictures the story ‘Rumpelstilzchen’. A room full of straw references Magritte’s The Tomb of the Wrestlers (in which a rose, and in another painting an apple, fills a room). However the reference is formal rather than conceptual. Hockney notes that while Magritte’s images play with scale, his image does not: “you could have a room full of straw, whereas you couldn’t have a whole rose fill a room.” Straw provided an ideal subject for Hockney to loosen up his typically precise cross hatching, with frenetic horizontal lines shaping the hay. Subtle wood texture rendered in aquatint provides a soft base for the hay in dark grey. Elegant line work defines a double window to the right, the baseboards, and mouldings where the walls meet the ceiling.
A room full of straw (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) 1969
Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked “DH” and “PP”
Plate 9.8 x 8.7 in / 25 x 22 cm
Paper 17.75 x 16 in / 45.09 x 40.64 cm
Unique publisher’s copy aside from the edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios
