Dog Etching No.12
Signed Print

Hockney started drawing dogs in 1987 when he adopted his first pair of dachshunds. What began as a casual drawing exercise soon became a series of tender portraits that are now an important part of his oeuvre and highly sought after by collectors. In 1998 Hockney set up a dedicated print studio in his Hollywood Hills home, collaborating with his friend Maurice Payne, who would prepare etching plates for the artist to draw directly onto in order to recreate the spontaneity of his original dog drawings. Many of the prints from this series show Hockney’s beloved dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie, singley and together, on a cushion that also works as a framing device for the composition. As in this signed etching, they are often asleep (the only time when Hockney could get them to sit still for a portrait) and are rendered in soft cross hatched marks that convey their wiry fur and classic sausage dog shape. Works from this series are collected, along with earlier paintings and drawings, in the book David Hockney’s Dog Days which was also published in 1998.