'PORTRAIT OF CAVAFY IN ALEXANDRIA' FROM ILLUSTRATIONS FOR FOURTEEN POEMS FROM C.P. CAVAFY 1966-67

© David Hockney

'PORTRAIT OF CAVAFY IN ALEXANDRIA' FROM ILLUSTRATIONS FOR FOURTEEN POEMS FROM C.P. CAVAFY 1966-67 1966

David Hockney (1937 – )

Details

Dimension
395 x 570 mm
Media
ETCHING
Accession number
P1179

Summary

Hockney had already used the poetry of Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)¹ as inspiration for the print Kaisarion and all his beauty. He travelled to Egypt in 1963 visiting Cairo, Luxor and Cavafy’s home city of Alexandria. It was almost another three years before he began work on the series of illustrations to accompany some of Cavafy’s verse. Hockney visited Beirut in January 1966 to soak up the atmosphere of the city he felt would be more like the cosmopolitan Alexandria of Cavafy’s day, which had all but disappeared in the mid 1960s. He selected 14 poems in a new translation by Nikos Stangos and Stephen Spender and began work on the plates in early 1966. He concentrated more on pure line than in his earlier etchings and drew some 20 line illustrations directly onto copper plates. 13 were finally published by Editions Alecto in 1967 both as a limited edition book and six loose leaf portfolio editions. Only four of the illustrations are actually set against a Middle Eastern backdrop, for in order to capture the mood and inherent sensuality of the poetry, Hockney decided to use all his own experiences and, for the most part, the illustrations are based on intimate drawings of his friends in London.

¹ the pseudonym of Konstantinos Pétron Kaváfis

Glossary

  • Edition

    All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.

  • Portfolio

    A set of pictures (as drawings, photographs or prints) either bound in book form or loose in a folder. These can be by the same artist or individual works by a selection of artists. The term also refers to the folder which holds the set.

Portfolio