David Hockney

By Leslie Sacks FIne Art

One of the most widely acclaimed of all living artists, David Hockney’s popularity is based on the enormous, continuing appeal of his pictures and the popular perception of him as a colorful extrovert. David Hockney has worked in a wide variety of media including painting, graphics, photography and theater design as well as a versatile selection of subject matter ranging from famous portraits to landscapes of southern California.

Hockney was born in Yorkshire, England in 1937. David Hockney first came to public prominence in the early sixties, as a post-graduate student of painting at the Royal College of Art in London. David Hockney experimented with numerous styles and became one of the most important portraitists of his era, renowned for depictions of family and people he met in his extensive travels. His work demonstrates a wish to uphold the human figure as a fit subject of painting, as well as an interest in imagery drawn from the urban environment. Despite his shouting ‘I am not a Pop artist’ during a private view party in 1962, Hockney’s student work is conventionally seen as contributing to the development of Pop Art in Britain.

In 1964, David Hockney moved to Los Angeles. In that year a swimming pool first appeared in the seminal painting, The California Collector, and David Hockney continued to paint the subject passionately. In these early water pictures, David Hockney was influenced by the abstract, interlocking puzzle-piece surface of Jean Dubuffet’s work. Hockney’s early pool water was stylized in a flat, modern manner in which looping spaghetti like lines complicate the notion of moving water. Over the next several years, portraiture and photography primarily occupied the artist, and he developed an intimate and powerful naturalism in this period.

David Hockney abandoned painting for a time in the mid-seventies to concentrate on drawing and print-making. Not many paintings were produced during the early eighties either, the artist preferring to spend his time constructing collages from photographs. These photo-collages were recently exhibited in a retrospective of the artist’s photography at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Hockney’s originality as a printmaker was apparent by the time he produced A Rake’s Progress, a series of 16 etchings conceived as a contemporary and autobiographical version of William Hogarth’s visual narrative. Hockney’s large body of graphic work, concentrating on etching and lithography, in itself assured him an important place in modern British art, and in series inspired by literary sources such as Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C. P. Cavafy, Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, and The Blue Guitar, he did much to revive the tradition of the livre d’artiste.

Pricing Forecast

The forecast for Hockeny pieces seems flat, auction results show pieces selling at or below estimates, with exceptions for extra ordinary pieces.

Title:
Steps with Shadow F (Paper Pool 2)

Sales Price**: $772,290 (£629,000)
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $491,120 (£400,000)
High Estimate: $736,680 (£600,000)

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: 50.51″ x 33.50″
(128.30cm x 85.10cm)
Created: 1978
Medium: Unique hand-coloured pressed paper pulp, on white TGL handmade paper, the full sheet

Auction Lot: 23
Auction House: Phillips
Auction Date: 01/19/2017

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Copyright, David Hockney
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Title:
Gregory in the Pool E (Paper Pool 4)

Sales Price**: $595,480 (£485,000)
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $491,120 (£400,000)
High Estimate: $736,680 (£600,000)

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: 32.01″ x 50.00″
(81.30cm x 127.00cm)
Created: 1978
Medium: Unique hand-coloured pressed paper pulp, on white TGL handmade paper, the full sheet

Auction Lot: 24
Auction House: Phillips
Auction Date: 01/19/2017

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Sales Price**: $50,650 (£41,250)
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $36,830 (£30,000)
High Estimate: $61,390 (£50,000)

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: 42.01″ x 32.01″
(106.70cm x 81.30cm)
Created: 1978
Medium: Unique hand-coloured pressed paper pulp, on yellow TGL handmade paper, the full sheet

Auction Lot: 25
Auction House: Phillips
Auction Date: 01/19/2017

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Copyright, David Hockney
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Title:
Luncheon at the British Embassy, Tokyo, February 16th 1983

Sales Price**: $49,110 (£40,000)
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $30,700 (£25,000)
High Estimate: $42,970 (£35,000)

Signature: Signed and Titled
Size: 46.65″ x 83.86″
(118.50cm x 213.00cm)
Created: 1983
Medium: photographic collage / Paper

Auction Lot: 26
Auction House: Phillips
Auction Date: 01/19/2017

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Sales Price**: $34,080 (£27,500)
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $8,670 (£7,000)
High Estimate: $12,390 (£10,000)

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: 20.08″ x 12.60″
(51.00cm x 32.00cm)
Created: 1963
Medium: Pencil and coloured pencil / Paper

Auction Lot: 190
Auction House:
Sotheby’s London, New Bond Street
Auction Date: 11/22/2016

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Sales Price**: $1,572,500
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $900,000
High Estimate: $1,200,000

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: 26.00″ x 18.00″
(66.04cm x 45.72cm)
Created: 1995
Medium: Oil / Canvas

Auction Lot: 140
Auction House: Sotheby’s New York
Auction Date: 11/18/2016

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Copyright, David Hockney
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Title:
STUDY FOR PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST (POOL WITH TWO FIGURES)

Sales Price**: $2,052,500
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $700,000
High Estimate: $1,000,000

Signature: Unavailable
Size: 13.88″ x 18.75″
(35.26cm x 47.63cm)
Created: 1972
Medium: Pencil and gouache, tape and paper collage / Canvas

Auction Lot: 34
Auction House: Sotheby’s New York
Auction Date: 11/17/2016

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Copyright, David Hockney
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Title:
IN SIX PARTS: WOLDGATE WOODS, 24, 25, AND 26 OCTOBER 2006

Sales Price**: $11,712,500
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $9,000,000
High Estimate: $12,000,000

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: Dimensions not available
Created: 2006
Medium: Oil / Canvas

Auction Lot: 43
Auction House: Sotheby’s New York
Auction Date: 11/17/2016

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Sales Price**: $6,970,000
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $6,000,000
High Estimate: $8,000,000

Signature: Signed and Dated
Size: 60.00″ x 76.00″
(152.40cm x 193.04cm)
Created: 2000
Medium: Oil / Canvas

Auction Lot: 12
Auction House: Phillips
Auction Date: 11/16/2016

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Copyright, David Hockney
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Title:
Walking in the Zen Garden at the Ryoanji Temple

Hammer Price*: -not sold-
*(Does not include auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $30,000
High Estimate: $40,000

Signature: Signed and Titled
Size: 40.00″ x 62.50″
(101.60cm x 158.75cm)
Created: 1983
Medium: photograph collage on paperboard mounted on panel / Panel

Auction Lot: 173
Auction House:
Christie’s New York, Rockefeller Center
Auction Date: 11/16/2016

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Sales Price**: $211,500
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $80,000
High Estimate: $120,000

Signature: Signed Initials
Size: 14.00″ x 16.75″
(35.56cm x 42.55cm)
Created: 1972
Medium: Colored Pencil and graphite / Paper

Auction Lot: 247
Auction House:
Christie’s New York, Rockefeller Center
Auction Date: 11/16/2016

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Sales Price**: $68,750
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $35,000
High Estimate: $45,000

Signature: Signed Initials
Size: 13.50″ x 16.00″
(34.29cm x 40.64cm)
Created: 1976
Medium: Colored Pencil and crayon / Paper

Auction Lot: 255
Auction House:
Christie’s New York, Rockefeller Center
Auction Date: 11/16/2016

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Sales Price**: $3,943,500
**(Includes auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $1,200,000
High Estimate: $1,800,000

Signature: Signed and Titled
Size: 53.32″ x 41.50″
(135.43cm x 105.41cm)
Created: 1995
Medium: in artist’s frame / Canvas

Auction Lot: 55a
Auction House:
Christie’s New York, Rockefeller Center
Auction Date: 11/15/2016

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Hammer Price*: $3,809 (€3,400)
*(Does not include auction fee to buyer)
Low Estimate: $4,481 (€4,000)
High Estimate: $6,720 (€6,000)

Signature: Signed
Size: 18.50″ x 19.29″ x 5.91″
(47.00cm x 49.00cm x 15.00cm)
Created: not given
Medium: Wood

Auction Lot: 737
Auction House: Cannes Encheres
Auction Date: 10/15/2016-10/16/2016

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