Name: Postcard Of Richard Wagner With A Glass Of Water
Brand: David Hockney
Rating: 5 (236 reviews)

Track auction value trend

The value of David Hockney’s Postcard Of Richard Wagner With A Glass Of Water (signed) is estimated to be worth between £2,550 and £3,850. This etching print from 1973 has shown consistent value growth and has an auction history of 21 total sales since its entry to the market in September 2008. The hammer price over the past five years has ranged from £1,304 in September 2024 to £8,568 in March 2021, with an average annual growth rate of 1%. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 100.

Meaning & Analysis

This signed screen print by British artist David Hockney, Portrait Of Richard Wagner With A Glass Of Water, was issued in an edition of 100 and is from 1973. One of Hockney’s many works to deal explicitly with music – in this case, with the German composer Richard Wagner. One of Hockney’s most-loved composers, Wagner has accompanied Hockney throughout his life; in 1987, the artist designed stages for a production of Wagner’s Tristan Und Isolde, held at the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

Featuring a variety of genre-defying painterly backdrops, these designs evoked the bold theatrically-orientated piece A Souvenir Of A Triple Bill For Andrea Velis (1982) and the experimental Snails Space series. Later in Hockney’s career in the 2000s, Hockney devised a so-called ‘Wagner drive’, crafting a playlist of the composer’s music designed to crescendo as he reached the crest of one of Hollywood’s many hills.

A product of Hockney’s collaboration with long-standing friend and master printer, Maurice Payne, this etching distorts the profile of the German composer, which is covered by a glass of water. In the same year, conceptual artist Michael-Craig Martin devised the piece An Oak Tree, which comprises a glass of water placed on a bathroom shelf. The thematic similarities between Hockney’s bold, masterful etching and this installation artwork suggest the nature of the former as a work of playful commentary on the state of contemporary art at the time.