Girl On A Sofa
Girl On A Sofa
Signed Print
Howard Hodgkin
£1,150-£1,650 VALUE (EST.)
$2,100-$3,050 VALUE (EST.)
$1,950-$2,750 VALUE (EST.)
¥10,000-¥14,000 VALUE (EST.)
€1,300-€1,900 VALUE (EST.)
$11,000-$16,000 VALUE (EST.)
¥190,000-¥270,000 VALUE (EST.)
$1,400-$2,050 VALUE (EST.)
This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
Lithograph, 1968
Signed Print Edition of 75
H 52cm x W 65cm
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Artwork | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2020 | Rago Arts and Auction Center - United States | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print | |||
| September 2020 | Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood - United Kingdom | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print | |||
| November 2017 | Bonhams Knightsbridge - United Kingdom | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print | |||
| May 2016 | Swann Auction Galleries - United States | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print | |||
| June 2015 | Phillips London - United Kingdom | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print | |||
| September 2013 | Bonhams Knightsbridge - United Kingdom | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print | |||
| December 2011 | Christie's London - United Kingdom | Girl On A Sofa - Signed Print |
Meaning & Analysis
This signed lithograph from 1968 is a rare, limited edition of 75 from Howard Hodgkin’s 5 Rooms series. The horizontal print presents to the viewer an abstract and highly stylised representation of a human figure, a girl – as the title indicates – as she sits on a couch.
Girl On A Sofa, together with its sister Girl At Night and the other prints in the portfolio, was made when Hodgkin was still a teacher at Bath Academy of Art, his alma mater, and therefore represents one of the earliest prints in Hodgkin’s oeuvre.
The print presents an image of a girl – although Hodgkin’s amorphous representation makes it hard to distinguish any physiological features – depicted through a half red and half yellow circle and a black brushstroke that evokes movement. The body of the girl is instead represented through the use of a lighter colour, demarcated against a very bright orange background and a stripped, horizontal navy and white bottom.
As one of Hodgkin’s earliest prints, this work betrays some of the germinal stylistic features of his practice – a far cry from the explosive, dynamic and energetic language of his more well-known works. Here, the colours are contained in clearly delineated shapes, making this print more similar to Pablo Picasso’s cubist language, or even Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract paintings, than to the John Hoyland style to which Hodgkin is more usually compared. Beyond style, the subject matter of the print, confined in an interior space, further brings this image closer to Picasso’s famous depictions of women reclining in a chair, looking out of the window.
