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One of David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm illustrations, taken from the story of ‘Fundevogel’. Shown in profile, an old woman with curled horns grimaces against a neatly crosshatched background. Pictured is the devilish cook from ‘Fundevogel’. Hockney has captured the villainess with perfection: a spoon, wielded menacingly, her downturned mouth set in an expression of anger, the ram-like horns which emerge almost elegantly from her pulled back hair. Painterly daubs of aquatint define the sleeves of her shapeless dress.
Hockney said: “The head of the old cook, of course, is done from the Leonardo Da Vinci in the Queen’s collection” He appropriated the image from ‘Five grotesque heads, and three heads of men in profile’, c.1510-20, in the Royal Collection Trust, capturing perfectly the woman’s turned down mouth and stern, lined face.
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.
The cook (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) 1969
Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked “DH” and “PP”
Plate 7.3 x 7.8 in / 18.5 x 19.8 cm
Paper 12 x 12 in / 30.48 x 30.48 cm
Unique publisher’s copy aside from the edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios
