In An Old Book
In An Old Book
Signed Print
David Hockney
£4,750-£7,000
$10,000-$14,500 Value Indicator
$8,500-$13,000 Value Indicator
¥45,000-¥70,000 Value Indicator
€5,500-€8,000 Value Indicator
$50,000-$70,000 Value Indicator
¥900,000-¥1,320,000 Value Indicator
$6,500-$9,500 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Etching
Edition size: 75
Year: 1966
Size: H 35cm x W 23cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2025 | Christie's London | United Kingdom | |||
| June 2024 | Bonhams New Bond Street | United Kingdom | |||
| September 2023 | Bonhams Knightsbridge | United Kingdom | |||
| June 2023 | Bonhams New Bond Street | United Kingdom | |||
| April 2023 | Lyon & Turnbull Edinburgh | United Kingdom | |||
| March 2023 | Freeman's Online | United States | |||
| April 2021 | Chiswick Auctions | United Kingdom |
Meaning & Analysis
Framed by a thin line a man poses as if in a doorway, his arms bent behind his head in a stiff pose that recalls a photoshoot for a magazine. The background, as with so many of Hockney’s etchings, is blank. The man is young and gazes confidently at the artist/viewer. He is fully nude and appears comfortable with your gaze, despite the stiffness of the pose, which was derived from a photograph, a way of working that Hockney usually avoided over working from life, saying ‘Things like weight and volume are very hard to get from a photograph. You don't get the information you need to be able to do the line'. The work is one of thirteen prints in the series Illustrations For Fourteen Poems By C.P. Cavafy, which accompanied a new translation of the Greek poet's work published in 1967. While Cavafy’s poems keep their homosexual themes concealed however, Hockney’s work proudly celebrates them, liberated perhaps by the fact that 1967 was also the year the British government finally decriminilsed homosexual acts. When asked to comment on the series Hockney said, “I was rather proud of it at the time, and yeah, I would have thought of it as good propaganda .... And [it] probably helped a little bit.”
