A lyrical treatise on colour and form, Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table from 1996 marks David Hockney's remarkable return to figurative painting during a pivotal period in his artistic career. Unusual for its positioning of two flowers directly on an abstracted ground, Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table is distinguished by its radiant hues and exceptional composition. Debuted in 1997, the present work was notably included in the Annely Juda Replica Handbags exhibition Flowers, Faces and Spaces, which marked Hockney's largest exhibition in London since his 1988 Tate retrospective. After a decade-long interlude from studio painting, during which he primarily explored photography, Hockney returned to California with a renewed devotion to portraiture and still-life painting. Following a visit to the Claude Monet retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago and Johannes Vermeer exhibition in The Hague’s Mauritshuis, Hockney was inspired by the delicate atmosphere of light engendered by the renowned Impressionist artist and astonished by the enduring virtuosic application of varnish and oil paint by the Dutch master. Following this visit, Hockney returned to his studio with a fervent burst of creative energy to explore his signature stylistic rendering of his surroundings. A dazzling array of brilliant cobalt blue, rich saffron yellow, and warm burnt oranges, Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table is a test.mes nt to this vibrant period of production and the artist's incomparable mastery over the elusive and fundamental elements of painting.

In keeping with the tradition of classical still life and flower paintings, Hockney prompts meditations on mortality and transience, both within the artist's own experience of painting flowers and of the deeply personal and profound relationship to t.mes and loss. Hockney had begun painting sunflowers for his friends as get-well cards but turned towards the transiency of flowers in contemplation, and in solace, of the recognition that life can be burgeoning with liveliness while nevertheless evolving and eventually fading. The tender poignancy of the present work coincides with a period of prolonged personal loss and mourning in Hockney's life during the late 80s and 90s, including the death of the critic and curator Henry Geldzahler, the passing of his close friend Ossie Clark, as well as that of painter Sandra Fisher, close friend and wife of R.B. Kitaj. Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table is thus suffused with personal meaning and transformation while simultaneously paying homage to the historical and artistic lineage of his predecessors, so many of whom explored flower paintings and still life as an opportunity to render their technical mastery of and emotive reckoning with painting.

In the present work, the titular blooms lie freshly cut, placed on a cerulean ground of rich, painterly brushstrokes; here, Hockney's subject is an unparalleled exploration of light, colour and form itself. The sunflowers are perfectly piqued and full of life, preserved in a moment of ineffable perfection; each delicate petal forms a crown around a burnt sienna head of seeds, their lush green stems so fecund we can almost smell them. Rendered in thickly impastoed swathes of vibrant cerulean, the enigmatic background denies specificity of t.mes , place and scene. Yet though the background remains completely abstracted, each delicately rendered blossom constitutes its own unique composition, with deliberate consideration of light intermingled with shadow and perspective. Throughout the picture plane, Hockney’s application of colour forms a remarkably strategic tool to generate depth in an otherwise flattened composition. The two teal and ochre vessels convey a sense of calm stillness as they gently rest on the table, accentuating the liveliness of the sunflowers and enticing the viewer into Hockney's captivating setting. The rich vitality of the sunflowers set against the vivid blue backdrop of abstracted brushstrokes completes a breathtaking composition.

In its exploration of experimental still life painting, Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table invokes not only a centuries-old art historical tradition, but also a motif that is of central importance within Hockney’s own oeuvre. Still life painting first captured Hockney’s interest in the 1960s, and served as a focus for a number of early works; from there, through the precise realism of the artist’s 1970s painting, to the colourful and imaginative abstraction of the present work and other 1990s paintings and beyond, the still life genre has allowed Hockney to continually refresh and explore his creative vision through familiar subject matter. Describings the draw of still life painting, the artist reflects: “I pointed out to [Francis Bacon] once that I knew a painting in California of some tulips in a vase that was as profound as anything he’d done. It was by Cézanne and it was in the Norton Simon Museum. I was just trying to tell him that it wasn’t the subject matter that made images profound but the way they were treated” (the artist in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, “Life of the artist,” BBC Arts, 14 May 2015, online).

One of twenty-five flower paintings from Hockney's Flower series that went on public view in London after a year of dedicated studio painting, Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table recalls the t.mes less classicism of Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Claude Monet while simultaneously paying homage to the technical aptitude of the Dutch Golden Age painters. Hockney dedicated this year to creating a series of paintings that offered a purview into his mature period of still life painting. The present work represents a vigorous intellectual interrogation of the tradition of still life, the technical application of pigment to canvas and the pleasure of artistic production that continues to occupy Hockney throughout his career. An arresting yet.mes ditative composition, Two Sunflowers Laying on a Table undeniably references Vincent van Gogh's mastery of the same subject. Expressing his admiration for the influential Post-Impressionist painter, Hockney commented, “I’ve always had quite a passion for Van Gogh, but certainly from the early seventies it grew a lot, and it’s still growing. I became aware of how wonderful [his paintings] really were. Somehow, they became more real to me…it is only recently they’ve really lived for me” (David Hockney, quoted in Marco Livingstone, David Hockney, New York 1997, p. 149).