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David Hockney|Snails Space

For Snails Space (1995), David Hockney created five large digital inkjet prints from photographs of his painted installation. The work extended from two canvases onto the floor, incorporating painted cubes, cones and cylinders. Nash Editions printed the series in Los Angeles.

All Snails Space Works By David Hockney (5)

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Fifth Detail, Snails Space, March 27th 1995

David Hockney

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Fourth Detail, Snails Pace, March 27th 1995

David Hockney

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Second Detail, Snails Space, March 25th 1995

David Hockney

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Snails Space - Complete Set

David Hockney

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Third Detail, Snails Space, March 27th 1995

David Hockney

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Significance & Analysis

'Snails Space' turns a painting made to change under moving light into fixed photographic prints, using the digital inkjet process Hockney was exploring in 1995. The installation behind them, 'Snails Space with Vari-Lites, "Painting as Performance"' (1995–96), was lit by computer-controlled stage lights that shifted its colours in a slow loop. Hockney described the result as a performance: "From when it begins to when it stops, it is theater and painting combined."

From painting to photograph

Hockney said he "decided to experiment with computer-controlled lighting, the type they use at pop concerts". The idea drew on his years designing opera sets. For the prints, he photographed his own paintings with a large-format 8 x 10 inch camera. The transparencies were scanned, and the scans printed on heavyweight textured Somerset paper. The detailed prints take parts of the installation as their subject, and their titles date them to late March 1995. They belong to a wider body of studio, flower and 'Parade' images that the David Hockney Studio published in 1996 as '20 Photographs'. That autumn the Alan Cristea Gallery in London showed ten of the new inkjet prints in its 'New Editions' exhibition. Hockney said their surface "seems almost physical".

Before and after

The installation grew out of Hockney's painted environments of 1993, which he had also turned into prints: the 'Painted Environment' series, colour laser prints dated 1993 and 1994 that each join 16 sheets on a single board. 'Snails Space' moved from laser printing to inkjet, and from many small sheets to one large one, printed by a specialist studio.

At auction

On 19 September 2026, 'First Detail, Snails Space, March 25th 1995' made £25,800 at Phillips's David Hockney sale in London. Wright in Chicago sold 'Third Detail, Snails Space, March 27th 1995' for $15,000 in October 2022 and 'Fourth Detail, Snails Pace, March 27th 1995' for $15,120 in June 2024. Earlier, in January 2020, a complete framed set made £43,750 at Phillips London.

What Edition Sizes Do the Snails Space Prints Come In?

'First Detail, Snails Space, March 25th 1995', 'Second Detail, Snails Space, March 25th 1995', 'Third Detail, Snails Space, March 27th 1995', 'Fourth Detail, Snails Pace, March 27th 1995', 'Fifth Detail, Snails Space, March 27th 1995' and 'Snails Space - Complete Set' were each issued in an edition of 45. Though dated 1995, they were published in 1996. Impressions sold at auction have carried Nash Editions' blindstamp, on sheets of about 89 x 111 cm.

What Does the Title Snails Space Mean?

Hockney meant the title as both a pun and a suggestion. It can be read as a play on 'snail's pace', and some impressions have even been catalogued as 'Snails Pace'. The installation's colours changed over a nine-minute cycle, and the suggestion is taken to be an invitation to slow down for what Hockney called "the pleasure of looking". He believed art should "overcome the sterility of despair".

What Does a Complete Set of Snails Space Contain?

The complete set sold at Phillips London in January 2020 was catalogued as ten digital inkjet prints, all framed and all carrying the same impression number. Alongside the five details, the wider group of 1995 photographs includes views of Hockney's Los Angeles studio, such as 'The Studio, March 28th 1995'.

Where Is the Original Snails Space Installation?

'Snails Space with Vari-Lites, "Painting as Performance"' belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, which received it as a gift. It was shown in Washington in autumn 1997 under six automated lights. The installation combines oil on two canvases with acrylic on canvas-covered Masonite and wood dowels, and measures 213.4 x 660.4 x 342.9 cm overall, so each print isolates a single passage of a much larger work.