Steps with Shadow

'I kept looking at the swimming pool; and it’s a wonderful subject, water, the light on the water. And this process with paper pulp demanded a lot of water; you have to wear boots and rubber aprons. I thought, really [what] I should do [is], find a watery subject for this process, and here it is; here, this pool, every time that you look at the surface, you look through it, you look under it’ (D. Hockney, quoted in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney: Paper Pools, New York 1980, p. 21).

'The paper is very beautiful, the surface, there is no such thing as a fat colour, and they are very subtle at times. They are like paintings, which is why I stayed; if they hadn’t been like paintings, I think I would have left after doing the first two or three small ones, I would have thought enough was enough’ (D. Hockney, quoted in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney: Paper Pools, New York 1980, p. 100).

Rendered in a saturated palette of cerulean blue and aquamarine, Steps with Shadow (1978) is the second in an experimental series of Paper Pools which saw David Hockney launch a full scale exploration into one of his most iconic subjects. One of the earliest iterations in this series, many of these works are now held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Inspired by the glistening swimming pool belonging to his old friend and graphic designer, Kenneth Tyler, whom Hockney knew from his time in California, the artist spent days captivated by the endless variations of shadows, ripples and reflections in his friend’s swimming pool when visiting his studio in upstate New York. The works are rendered from pulped paper hand-made by the artist, a medium whose tactile, absorbent quality acted as a foil for the poolside waterscapes he sought to capture. Enchanted by this new medium Hockney was intimately engaged in the process from conception to creation. As Hockney explains of Steps with Shadow, ‘In the late afternoon the shadow began to fall on the pool steps. I was taking photographs of that and of bold patterns in the water. And after this, I began to try this idea out with the paper pulp process… we still thought it was like a graphic process, that you could make a number of them, except that I would have to do them each time. If Ken did it while I wasn’t there, he probably wouldn’t get the watery effect at all’ (D. Hockney, quoted in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney: Paper Pools, New York 1980, p. 25).

The artist’s fascination with the shimmering, amorphous quality of water can be seen in his art since at least 1964 when he frst moved to California. The deep azure colouring of the water, combined with the geometric formality of the swimming pool steps in Steps with Shadow are reminiscent of works from Hockney’s celebrated California Dreaming series, including the sunbathed scenes such as A Bigger Splash of 1967 (Tate, London). The suffused light of Steps with Shadow recalls the cooler east coast light and black and red shadows at play in New York. The varying hues and tints of cobalt lightly melting into dappled lilac tinted pale blue infuse the pool with a shimmering effect that is enhanced by the textured relief of the paper. The distressed edges of the natural paper fibers lend a dynamism to the scene, as if the water is lapping at the border and moving beyond it. Hockney especially captures the impression of moving water in the flickering underwater impression of the steps undulating in the ripples.

The paper pulping technique fused paper-making and painting in a way that Hockney felt allowed him to capture the essence of the image without the detail. As the artist explains, ‘painting in England before, I kept saying I thought the paintings were getting too gray, too tight and I kept getting fnicky and I wanted to be bolder; I figured it was harder to be bolder and these works now allowed me to be bolder’ (D. Hockney, quoted in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney: Paper Pools, New York 1980, p. 100). Hockney studied Tyler’s pool in New York at different times of day and night through Polaroid shots and subsequent drawings in order to muse on the many different light and colour changes that the pool underwent. From these drawings, Hockney created cloisonné-like moulds, pouring liquid coloured pulp directly over fat sheets of wet, newly made paper. The artist then put the finishing touches on the work by directly applying coloured pulp and liquid dyes freehand. In this new medium, Hockney utilised copious amounts of water in his paradoxical quest to capture in a still image the constant rippling on the pool’s surface. As the artist noted in his essay on the series, ‘I kept looking at the swimming pool; and it’s a wonderful subject, water, the light on the water. And this process with paper pulp demanded a lot of water; you have to wear boots and rubber aprons. I thought, really [what] I should do [is], find a watery subject for this process, and here it is; here, this pool, every time that you look at the surface, you look through it, you look under it’ (D. Hockney, quoted in N. Stangos (ed.), David Hockney: Paper Pools, New York 1980, p. 21).