David Hockney|The Yosemite Suite

'The Yosemite Suite' shows Hockney taking the iPad outdoors to draw a landscape from life, months before he did the same with the Yorkshire spring. "I do think the iPad is the new art form," he said.

Drawing in the valley

The tablet was still new to him in 2010, and he spent months learning the 'Brushes' app. In Yosemite he drew in the open air, and the iPad let him work quickly: "I realized how fast I can capture it with the iPad, a lot faster than watercolors for example." 'Brushes' kept each drawing in layers, so he could return to an earlier stage of a view and rework it.

Two visits, two scales

The 24 single sheets come from the 2010 visit. Hockney went back in 2011 with a different aim: to print the drawings very large. The five big works carry the dates he drew them, 5 and 16 October 2011, and were made for that scale. Each is an inkjet print on four sheets of paper, mounted on four Dibond panels. He planned the large drawings for a room at the Royal Academy on the theme of looking up, to hang with his painting 'A Bigger Message'. The Yosemite images were first shown there in 'A Bigger Picture' in 2012. The de Young Museum in San Francisco showed them again in 'A Bigger Exhibition' in 2013 and 2014. In 2018 Hockney gave impressions from the suite to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, among them both large drawings of 16 October.

At auction

Three single sheets sold at Phillips' London Hockney sales between 2022 and 2026. 'The Yosemite Suite 1' made £126,000 in September 2022, 'The Yosemite Suite 21' £57,150 in September 2023 and 'The Yosemite Suite 19' £77,400 in September 2026. All three figures include fees.

Before and after

The suite grew out of the phone and tablet drawings Hockney began in 2009, gathered in 'iPhone and iPad Drawings (2009–2012)'. In January 2011, between his two Yosemite visits, he began drawing the East Yorkshire landscape outdoors on the iPad, the work that became 'The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate'.