David Hockney's exploration of swimming pools in his graphic work represents a pivotal achievement in contemporary printmaking. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hockney developed innovative techniques to capture water's paradoxical qualities—its transparency, movement, and reflective surfaces.

"Pool Made with Paper and Blue Ink" stands as a landmark work in this investigation. Published in 1980, it showcases Hockney's distinctive approach to representing water through simplified yet expressive means. Using a restricted palette dominated by blues, he created a stylized depiction of a swimming pool that balances abstraction with recognizability. The lithograph employs curving, parallel lines of varying densities to suggest water's surface movement and depth.