David Hockney

£20,000-£35,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD35,000-AUD60,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD30,000-CAD60,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY170,000-CNY300,000 VALUE (EST.)

€25,000-€40,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD190,000-HKD330,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥3,360,000-¥5,870,000 VALUE (EST.)

$25,000-$40,000 VALUE (EST.)

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

Meaning & Analysis

A round blue vase sits on what appears to be a glass table, spilling out tulips in shades of bright and pale pink from its elegant neck. The leaves of the flowers complement and frame these blooms, fanning out across the centre of the composition. The vase is reflected or merely recreated in shadow on the surface of the table offering a visual symmetry to the composition that makes it all the more striking. The background is characteristically bare for a Hockney still life as detail is reserved for the flowers themselves and the decoration on the vase which recalls some of the artist’s swimming pool prints. A signed lithograph, Pretty Tulips 1969 sees Hockney returning to a subject which had already captivated the first decade of his career. Throughout his extensive oeuvre we are faced with flowers and still lifes and the artist shows no sign of stopping; today he tends to produce digital prints rather than lithographs but his obsession for natural beauty is relentless. With this pastel palette we are reminded of his digital print Lilacs where green and pink act as gorgeous complements to each other.