An Erotic Etching
An Erotic Etching
Signed Print
David Hockney
£5,500-£8,000
$11,500-$17,000 Value Indicator
$10,000-$15,000 Value Indicator
¥50,000-¥80,000 Value Indicator
€6,500-€9,500 Value Indicator
$60,000-$90,000 Value Indicator
¥1,090,000-¥1,590,000 Value Indicator
$7,500-$11,000 Value Indicator
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22 x 16cm, Edition of 100, Etching
Medium: Etching
Edition size: 100
Year: 1975
Size: H 22cm x W 16cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
Last Auction: April 2025
Value Trend:
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
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Meaning & Analysis
An Erotic Etching is a signed etching by British artist, David Hockney, dating from 1975. Released in an edition of 100, this etching was created for art historian and academic Peter Webb’s seminal publication, The Erotic Arts (1975), and is exemplary of Hockney’s delicate and economical approach to likeness.
Featuring a number of interviews with influential artists of the period, such as Henry Moore, Hans Bellmer, Allen Jones and Hockney himself, Webb’s book was the first scholarly exploration of the importance of eroticism as a source of artistic inspiration. Hockney’s print accompanies the work’s lengthy exploration of the interplay between pornography, societal attitudes towards sex, and artistic production: themes which permeate its visibly erotic subject matter.
A straightforward portrayal of nudity and sexual activity, An Erotic Etching moves away from Hockney’s coded references to homosexuality, characteristic of his hugely famous work We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961), the name of which references a poem by American writer Walt Whitman. Forthright and candid, this etching is a direct reflection of the period in which it was created: produced at a time when homosexuality was no longer illegal in Britain — it was legalised in 1967 — the work sees Hockney explore his own sexuality in a direct and determined fashion.
