Responds to · 1976–1977
The Man with the Blue Guitar
The portfolio's own title page states the lineage — etchings by David Hockney, who was inspired by Wallace Stevens, who was inspired by Pablo Picasso.
Print portfolio
The Blue Guitar
by David Hockney
Hockney's answer to Stevens answering Picasso — twenty etchings whose title page spells out the lineage: by David Hockney, who was inspired by Wallace Stevens, who was inspired by Pablo Picasso.
- 1976–77, published 1977
- Portfolio of twenty etchings (eighteen with aquatint, one with drypoint), published by Petersburg Press, London and New York, in an edition of 200
The chain, etched
Hockney read The Man with the Blue Guitar in 1976 and spent the next year answering it in etching. Not illustration, by his own account. He took up the poem's theme, the transformations the imagination works on what it sees, and let the plates move between Picasso quotation, Stevens paraphrase, and his own vocabulary. The portfolio's full title spells out the genealogy: etchings by David Hockney, who was inspired by Wallace Stevens, who was inspired by Pablo Picasso.
Painting to poem to print, 1903 to 1937 to 1977. Each work answers the one before and remains entirely its own, which is the whole argument for a graph that lets influence travel across media. The blind musician from Barcelona kept generating art for three-quarters of a century.
Timeline
1976–77
Hockney made the twenty etchings, working from Wallace Stevens's poem The Man with the Blue Guitar — itself long linked to Picasso.
1977
Published by Petersburg Press; the title page names the lineage — David Hockney, inspired by Wallace Stevens, inspired by Pablo Picasso.
Frequently asked questions
What is The Blue Guitar by David Hockney?
A portfolio of twenty etchings Hockney made in 1976–77, in response to Wallace Stevens's poem The Man with the Blue Guitar.
How is it connected to Picasso and Stevens?
Its title page spells out the whole chain: by David Hockney, who was inspired by Wallace Stevens, who was inspired by Pablo Picasso.
How many prints are in it?
Twenty etchings.
How were they made?
As etchings, several in colour, published by Petersburg Press in 1977.
What do they show?
Playful variations on guitars, still lifes and figures in Hockney's bright graphic style — riffing on Stevens's imagery rather than illustrating the poem line by line.
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