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The Weather Drawn: Hockney Working at Gemini

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Hockney drawing on a lithographic stone for The Weather Series, 1973. Photograph by Daniel B. Freeman.

Sidney Felsen has quipped that Hockney made his Weather prints at Gemini “because Los Angeles had no weather.” While the California sun undoubtedly appealed to the British artist, Hockney’s series takes on both the subject of weather and conventions of depicting intangible atmospheric conditions—“the weather drawn” as Hockney puts it. In so doing, The Weather Series is in dialogue not just with Hokusai and Monet, but also with a rich lineage of artists who have depicted seasonal change in serial formats, including Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Nicolas Poussin. Initially, Hockney planned a larger series that would include prints of frost and a rainbow. Though these never materialized, he did create a number of variants and related prints (which fall outside the discrete series) while testing different representations of atmospheric phenomena.

Hockney relaxing in Gemini’s artist studio, 1973. Photograph by Daniel B. Freeman

View the slideshow below for photographs of Hockney working at Gemini on The Weather Series and a selection of related prints.

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