David Hockney

£9,000-£10,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD15,000-AUD20,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD15,000-CAD15,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY80,000-CNY80,000 VALUE (EST.)

€10,000-€10,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD80,000-HKD90,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥1,490,000-¥1,660,000 VALUE (EST.)

$10,000-$10,000 VALUE (EST.)

This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.

Meaning & Analysis

This signed print by internationally venerated British artist David Hockney is from 1962. Issued in an edition of 75, it depicts a couple seen in profile and is a printed study for the larger painting, First Marriage (A Marriage Of Styles 1).

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This signed print by much loved British artist David Hockney is from 1962 – a year marked by the artist’s graduation from London’s prestigious art school, the Royal College of Art (RCA). Like The Hypnotist MCA Tokyo, a print study for a larger painting named The Hypnotist, this work is a study for the painting First Marriage (A Marriage Of Styles 1). Depicting a couple in profile, the work makes use of the child-like and cartoon-esque style characteristic of Hockney’s depiction of the human form during this period. The female figure wears earrings which echo the concentric forms of her headband and Hockney’s caricature-like rendering of her breasts. Behind the couple is a simplistic portrayal of a palm tree – a recurring feature of Hockney’s 1960s etchings, as in Pacific Mutual Life (1964). The inspiration for this work came from a visit to Germany in the summer of 1962. Accompanied by an American friend, Hockney looked around East Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, where he saw his friend stand next to a seated Egyptian figure crafted in wood. One of the chief inspirations for this work is that of French Dadaist, Jean Dubuffet. Commenting on Dubuffet’s influence on his cartoon-like works of the early ‘60s, Hockney once said: ‘it was his style of doing images, the kind of childish drawings he used that attracted me.’