This report examines four of Hockney's best-known swimming pool prints, which are analysed individually throughout: the twelve Water Made Of Lines lithographs (1980), Pool Made With Paper And Blue Ink For Book (1980), My Pool And Terrace (1983), and Afternoon Swimming (1980).
The Water Made Of Lines lithographs offer the clearest example of how widely values can differ between closely related works. Since 2021, the twelve published variants have generated 37 public auction sales totalling £3.34 million in hammer value. Average prices range from £40,000 to £170,000 – a 4.3-fold difference across works that share the same underlying composition. Understanding what drives that variation is central to comparing their values.
Which David Hockney Water Made Of Lines Prints Have Performed Best?
Lithograph Of Water Made Of Lines, A Green Wash, And A Light Blue Wash sits at the top of the chart, averaging £170,000. That figure, however, comes from a single public sale at Phillips London in January 2023, where the print exceeded its £90,000 high estimate by 89%.
By comparison, Lithographic Water Made Of Lines, Crayon, And Two Blue Washes provides a different picture. It has sold six times since 2021 – the joint-highest transaction count of the twelve variants – averaging £102,458, with a top result of £137,508 ($185,606 USD) at Sotheby's New York in May 2023. Its repeated auction appearances provide considerably more evidence of the prices collectors have been willing to pay.
At the other end of the chart, Lithograph Of Water Made Of Lines With Two Light Blue Washes has sold just once since 2021, achieving £39,997 ($53,987 USD) at Christie's New York in October 2021, which remains the strongest available indication of value. For prints that trade less frequently, single results are often the only available reference point for market value. These should be considered alongside when the work sold, how values for comparable prints have moved since, and the condition of the individual impression.
Does Wash Colour Or Edition Size Explain The Price Difference?
Three of the twelve variants incorporate a green wash, and they account for two of the three highest average prices in the group. Every green-wash variant has averaged more than £88,000 since 2021, placing them consistently towards the higher end of the Water Made Of Lines market.
Green alone does not explain the difference, however. Crayon, And Two Blue Washes, which contains no green, has traded six times at an average of £102,458, outperforming two of the three green-wash variants. Meanwhile, the lower-priced variants include examples both with and without coloured washes. Colour may contribute to how individual variants are valued, but the auction results do not show a consistent relationship between a particular wash and a higher price.
Edition size shows even less of a relationship with price. Crayon, And Two Blue Washes was published in an edition of 85, the largest of the twelve, yet has the second-highest average price among the variants. By comparison, Thick/Thin Lines, A Light Blue And A Dark Blue Wash, the smallest edition at 34, has one recorded sale since 2021 at £85,000, placing it eighth by average price.
Across the twelve variants, neither colour nor edition size consistently determines which works command the highest prices. Instead, the auction record suggests demand extends across the Water Made Of Lines group. The variants that have appeared most frequently since 2021 span different colour combinations and edition sizes, with collectors competing for a range of works as they become available. This is particularly relevant for a group that trades infrequently; rather than demand concentrating around one preferred variant, the market appears willing to absorb different versions when they come to auction.
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Why Do Results Vary Within The Same Print?
Several of the Water Made Of Lines variants have now built enough auction history to show how widely prices can vary even for the same print. Lithographic Water Made Of Lines has ranged from £57,000 to £100,000 since 2021, a 76% spread. Crayon, And Two Blue Washes shows almost exactly the same range of variation across six sales, from £78,000 to £137,500, while Crayon Only, No Wash has ranged from £71,000 to £119,000 across five. By comparison, Green Wash Only has remained remarkably consistent, selling between £85,000 and £90,500 across four appearances.
Proof status does not appear to explain much of that variation. Across the 37 Water Made Of Lines sales recorded since 2021, main edition impressions averaged £91,000, compared with £87,000 across the four works identified as proofs – a difference of around 5%. The proof sample is small, so this should not be read as a fixed premium, but it suggests that proof status alone has had relatively little influence on pricing in recent sales.
David Hockney Water Made Of Lines Auction Activity, 2021–2026
Trading activity if the twelve Water Made Of Lines lithographs has fluctuated from year to year. 2023 showed competition, with 14 sales generating £1.36 million in hammer value – more than double any other year and accounting for 38% of all sales recorded since 2021. Activity has since fallen back, with five sales in 2024 and six in 2025. Just one Water Made Of Lines print came to auction in H1 2026, achieving £95,000 hammer at Sotheby's London in March.
The limited availability of these works is notable against the heightened attention surrounding Hockney's market following his passing in June 2026. Rather than an increase in supply, the auction market has so far seen very few examples of these lithographs return to market. However, these works also have a proven broad buyer base and international reach. Since 2021, the twelve variants have sold through auction houses across London, New York, Paris, Sydney and Tokyo,.
David Hockney's Pool Made With Paper And Blue Ink Print Value
Pool Made With Paper And Blue Ink For Book is part of Hockney's Paper Pools book project. Issued in an edition of 1,000, it is one of the most frequently traded prints in Hockney's market. MyArtBroker's print market database traces 164 public sales back to 1998, including 66 between 2021 and 2026, generating £2.4 million in hammer value.
Across sales since 2020, main edition and artist's proof impressions have achieved almost identical average values of £36,200 and £36,400 respectively. For buyers and sellers, recent comparable sales and the condition of the individual impression are more useful indicators of fair market value than proof status alone.
The print's extensive auction history also shows how values can fluctuate over time. The annual average reached £44,000 across 14 sales in 2022 before falling to £35,000 in 2023 and £30,000 in 2024 – an approximate 31% decline from the 2022 high. Notably, 2024 was also the highest trading activity in the period, with 17 sales, showing that lower prices did not coincide with a lack of trading activity.
Prices have since recovered. The average rose to £37,000 across 13 sales in 2025, while the five sales recorded in 2026 have averaged around £41,000 – the strongest level since 2022 and 6% below the previous high. For a print that appears regularly at auction, this depth of trading provides a much clearer view of how its market has repriced than is possible for the more scarcely traded Water Made Of Lines lithographs.
The print has sold through auction houses across the UK, US, Australia, Germany and Canada since 2021, also reflecting an active international market.
Top Results – Pool Made With Paper And Blue Ink For Book, 2021–H1 2026
| Date | Auction House | Hammer (GBP) | (USD) | Proof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jan 2023 | Phillips London | £65,000 | $87,736 | Main Edition |
| 24 Oct 2022 | Phillips New York | £57,553 | $65,000 | Main Edition |
| 27 Sep 2022 | Bonhams Los Angeles | £55,708 | $60,000 | Main Edition |
| 8 Jun 2022 | Christie's London | £55,440 | $74,832 | Main Edition |
| 26 Mar 2026 | Christie's London | £55,000 | $74,238 | Main Edition |
David Hockney My Pool And Terrace Print Value
My Pool And Terrace is one of the more accessible ways to collect Hockney's swimming pool imagery. Since 2021, 18 examples have sold at public auction, generating approximately £208,500 in hammer value and an average price of £11,500.
Prices rose sharply at the beginning of the period, from an average of £6,500 across two sales in 2021 to £13,500 across three sales in 2022. Since then, annual averages have remained between roughly £10,000 and £13,500, suggesting that after the initial rise in value, pricing has remained relatively stable even as the number of works coming to auction has fluctuated.
The strongest public auction result in the period came in December 2025, when an impression sold for £18,730 hammer at Abell. Seven examples sold that year at an average of £12,000, the highest transaction volume since 2021, showing that increased availability did not materially weaken pricing. No examples have appeared at public auction so far in 2026.
Since 2021, My Pool And Terrace has sold through 15 auction houses across the US, UK, Europe and Japan. While its average price remains considerably below the other swimming pool works examined in this report, this international auction history provides collectors with a relatively established record against which to assess value.
Top Results – My Pool And Terrace, 2021–2026
| Date | Auction House | Hammer (GBP) | (USD) | Proof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Dec 2025 | Abell | £18,730 | $25,000 | Main Edition |
| 19 Apr 2023 | Sotheby's New York | £16,203 | $20,000 | Main Edition |
| 11 Mar 2022 | Wilson55 | £15,000 | $20,262 | Main Edition |
| 12 Feb 2025 | Phillips New York | £13,662 | $18,455 | Main Edition |
| 2 Oct 2025 | Mallet Japan | £13,142 | $17,752 | Main Edition |
David Hockney Afternoon Swimming Print Value
Afternoon Swimming, issued in an edition of 55, has a longer trading history than its recent auction activity suggests. MyArtBroker's print market database shows ten public sales since 2012, only three of them since 2021.
Between 2012 and 2019, the print appreciated considerably, rising from £36,700 ($60,000 USD) at Sotheby's New York in April 2012 to £104,732 ($135,000 USD) at Christie's New York in October 2019. Across those seven sales, every result has either met or exceeded its presale estimate, while prices have moved progressively higher over the period despite some variation between individual sales.
The market accelerated sharply in 2021, when an impression sold for £303,010 ($400,000 USD) at Christie's New York against an estimate of £72,723–£109,084 ($100,000–$150,000), almost three times the previous auction high. The subsequent sale the following year achieved £240,000 at Phillips London in September 2022, followed by £180,505 ($240,000 USD) at Christie's New York in October 2025. Prices have therefore moderated from the exceptional 2021 result, although the most recent sale remains 72% above the previous high established in 2019.
With only three sales since 2019, however, those successive declines should not be read as a straightforward measure of depreciation. For a print that appears this infrequently, condition, provenance, timing and competition for an individual impression can have a greater influence on each result.
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Top Results – Afternoon Swimming, 2021–H1 2026
| Date | Auction House | Hammer (GBP) | (USD) | vs. Estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Apr 2012 | Sotheby's New York | £36,122 | $60,000 | 1.49x |
| 2 Nov 2012 | Sotheby's New York | £54,260 | $90,000 | 1.84x |
| 27 Oct 2013 | Phillips New York | £42,593 | $70,000 | 1.46x |
| 29 Mar 2017 | Christie's London | £74,405 | $100,592 | 1.88x |
| 4 Apr 2017 | Sotheby's Online | £59,055 | $79,839 | 1.88x |
| 25 Oct 2018 | Christie's New York | £88,955 | $115,000 | 2.05x |
| 23 Oct 2019 | Christie's New York | £103,901 | $135,000 | 1.99x |
| 22 Oct 2021 | Christie's New York | £288,581 | $400,000 | 4.00x |
| 13 Sep 2022 | Phillips London | £238,110 | $321,914 | 0.93x |
| 24 Oct 2025 | Christie's New York | £180,505 | $240,000 | - |
Methodology
All prices are hammer prices in GBP, excluding buyer's premium, drawn from MyArtBroker's proprietary auction database. The report analyses four David Hockney swimming pool works independently: the twelve Water Made Of Lines lithographs (1980), Pool Made With Paper And Blue Ink For Book, My Pool And Terrace, and Afternoon Swimming.
Charts cover public auction sales from January 2021 to June 2026, with 2026 representing a partial year. Where stated, longer auction histories are used to provide additional context and are drawn from the same database.
Proof status is classified from auction-house cataloguing, with lots that cannot be reliably identified as Main Edition or Artist's Proof treated as Unmarked. Erroneous data entries were excluded from the analysis. Performance against estimate is calculated only where a valid same-currency estimate is available, using hammer price against the estimate midpoint.
Edition sizes and physical condition are not fully captured for every work in this dataset; where a variant shows an unusually wide trading range that proof status doesn't explain, condition and impression quality are the more likely explanation. This report is intended as a research tool to support informed decision-making around buying and selling in the art print market, and does not constitute financial advice.
