One of David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm illustrations, taken from the story of ‘Fundevogel’. Hockney said that the landscape was “done from an old photograph I found of the vineyards on the Moselle River”. There is the influence of Giorgio Morandi’s subtley-shaded landscape etchings in the shape of the house and tree, as well as the cross-hatching and line work. Hockney’s landscape conveys the bucolic setting of a fairy tale and the potential danger hidden within the woods -- the viewer is left to wonder who lives on the hilltop in that diminutive cabin.

Hockney chose the story ‘Fundevogel’, or ‘Foundling bird” for its detail, and the narrative of transformation. In ‘Fundevogel’, a forester finds a baby, Fundevogel, in a bird's nest and raises him with his daughter Lenchen. The family grows up happy and loving each other. When Lenchen sees the cook carrying buckets of water to the house and learns that the cook plans to boil Fundevogel the next day. She warns him, and they flee. The cook sends servants to find them, but Fundevogel transforms into a rosebush and later into a church with Lenchen as a chandelier, each time evading capture. Eventually, Fundevogel turns into a pond with Lenchen as a duck, and the cook drowns while trying to drink from it. The children return home safely.

A wooded landscape (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) 1969
Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP"
Plate 15.4 x 10.6 in / 39 x 27 cm
Paper 24.75 x 17.5 in / 62.87 x 44.45 cm
Unique publisher’s copy aside from the edition of 400