David Hockney iPad drawings of Yorkshire Wolds sold at Sotherby’s

A collection of David Hockney’s iPad drawings of the Yorkshire Wolds have been sold at auction for £6.2m.

The 17 prints are titled The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate and were started in 2011, six years after Hockney swapped Beverley Hills for Bridlington.

They went under the hammer earlier at Sotheby’s in London, selling for more than double the estimate for the collection.

Sotheby’s said it was the largest group of Hockney’s iPad drawings to come to market and described it as an “exceptionally rare opportunity” for buyers.

The 17 works came from a private collection and the sale coincided with the Frieze art fair.

Since creating the first drawing in January 2011, Hockney, who is now 88, returned daily to different spots in Woldgate, continuing the series through to spring.

He had planned to paint at a plein air easel but realised it was a “bit difficult when you are stood there in the winter”, and turned to his iPad to fulfil the project, Sotheby’s said.

The full series was then unveiled as part of an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2012.

Hockney was brought up in Bradford but spent a lot of summers during his school holidays stocking corn in East Yorkshire.

During the 1990s, he visited Yorkshire more frequently to visit his mother, and later when his close friend, Jonathan Silver, was diagnosed with cancer.