The Blue Guitar is a suite of twenty etchings with aquatint by David Hockney, drawn in 1976–77 and published in 1977 in London and New York by Petersburg Press.

Like the poem, they are about transformations within art as well as the relation between reality and the imagination, so these are pictures and different styles of representation juxtaposed and reflected and dissolved within the same frame."

— David Hockney(Artist's statement on dust-jacket of the accompanying catalogue documenting the publication of The Blue Guitar suite of etchings).

[9] Other images created at this time include Artist and Model (1973–74) which contrasts etching techniques Hockney employed before and after Crommelynk's tutorage,[6] and Contrejour in the French style (1974),[10] both published by Petersburg Press, London.

[11]"When I first read The Man with the Blue Guitar, I wasn't quite sure what it was about, like all poems like that, but I loved the rhythms in it and some of the imagery, just the choice of words is marvellous.

Each image is handprinted from two copper plates and inked by hand from a selection of five colours, red, yellow, blue, green and black.

[13] Once editioned, the 40 plates were "cancelled" by punching holes through them, destroying their ability to produce the artis' intended image.

[14][15] Publication by Petersburg Press Ltd. simultaneously in London (59a Portobello Road, W11) and New York (17 East 74th Street, NY 10021).

[1] The Museum of Modern Art holds a solo exhibition dedicated to the suite in the Sachs Galleries, titled David Hockney: The Blue Guitar.

These were proofed by Maurice Payne each from two copper plates, 34.5 x 42.5 cm, inked from a selection of five colours: red, yellow, blue, green and black.

The editions were printed by hand in London and New York at the Petersburg Studios, and are presented in a box bound in leather at the workshop of Rudolf Rieser in Cologne.

Fabricated in Cologne by Rudolf Rieser, the case is bound in grey leather and embossed with the title 'The Blue Guitar'.

[40] The complete boxed suite with title page, colophon and all with full margins, all signed and numbered 167/200 in pencil.

[43] The complete boxed suite with title page, colophon and all with full margins, all signed and numbered 187/200 in pencil.

[44] The complete boxed suite with title page, colophon and all with full margins, all signed and numbered 31/200 in pencil.

Hockney has been able to adapt his reading of Picasso's art to his own very different representational problems and has thereby created works that are fresh, innovative, and personal.'