Mount Fuji and Flowers

David Hockney

1972 · Acrylic on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

After his breakup with Peter Schlesinger in the summer of 1971, Hockney traveled to Japan with his friend Mark Lancaster. Made in London after his return and assuming multiple painterly manners, this work references the delicate, dripping washes of color-field painting in the treatment of Mount Fuji, while the white jonquils in the foreground are rendered in a hard-edged style. The image itself is also a composite: Hockney worked from a postcard of Mount Fuji and a flower-arrangement manual, rather than direct observation— perhaps an ironic response to the commercial culture he found in Japan, which contradicted his expectations of an unspoiled and bucolic landscape.

Artist

David Hockney

Date

1972

Medium

Acrylic on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Mrs. Arthur Hays Sulzberger Gift, 1972