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David
Hockney

One of Britain’s most beloved Pop artists, David Hockney is best known for his unforgettable, brightly coloured paintings and collages. If you’re looking for original David Hockney prints and editions for sale or would like to sell, request a complimentary valuation and browse our network’s most in-demand works.

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Biography

British-born David Hockney is a renowned painter and printmaker, best known for his bold, bright and experimental works. Hockney has experimented with a variety of mediums throughout his artistic career. Dabbling in the latest technologies, Hockney has delved into the realm of digital art, even utilising the Brushes application on his iPad to capture his celebrated landscapes.

In the 1980s Hockney launched into manufacturing photocollages. He discovered he could execute evocative pieces using the Polaroid shots he took and went on to create photography works such as My Mother, Bolton Abbey, 1982. Eventually, Hockney decided to return to painting after he found photography to be a limiting medium for his artistic scope.

Hailing from Bradford, Yorkshire, Hockney has explored a lifelong interest in different ‘ways of looking’ through his art, experimenting with a vast array of processes, media and styles in his long and illustrious career.

Swimming pools are a focal point of Hockney’s artistic oeuvre. Hockney’s series of paintings known as The Splash and A Bigger Splash were executed in 1966 and 1967 have proven to be iconic artworks in British Pop Art. These works perfectly capture and immortalise the ‘splash’ of an unseen swimmer entering a Californian swimming pool on a sunny day and mimic a snapshot from a camera.

Hockney continues with his lifelong muse, the swimming pool, in his celebrated 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), where the prospect of illustrating two figures in varying motions excited him. The painting portrays Hockney’s former lover, Peter Schlesinger, standing over a figure swimming towards him in the pool. The painting is now Hockney’s most expensive work ever sold, selling for US$90.3 million at Christie’s, New York.

Between January and April 2021, the Royal Academy of Arts organised The Bigger Picture exhibition, exhibiting 50 years' worth of his landscape paintings to the public.

Portrait Of The Artist by David Hockney

Portrait Of The Artist (Pool With Two Figures) © David Hockney 1972

1. £70.7M for David Hockney's Portrait Of An Artist (Pool With Two Figures)

Portrait Of An Artist (Pool With Two Figures) became not only the most expensive work by Hockney at auction when it sold at Christie’s in New York on 15 November 2018, but also the most expensive work by any living artist at the time. The painting – which combines Hockney’s iconic swimming pool and double portrait themes – sold for almost US$30 million more than the previous record set by Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog (Orange) from 2013. The painting is among Hockney’s most famous artworks, appearing in his 2017 landmark retrospective at Tate Britain and even satirised in the Netflix cartoon Bojack Horseman.

Henry Geldzahler And Christopher Scott by David Hockney

Henry Geldzahler And Christopher Scott © David Hockney 1969

2. £37.7M for David Hockney's Henry Gelzahler And Christopher Scott

Between 1968-75, Hockney made a series of seven double portraits – one of them being the Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler and his then-boyfriend, painter Christopher Scott. When Henry Geldzahler And Christopher Scott came up for auction at Christie’s in London on 6 March 2019, it was one of just two double portraits remaining in private hands. The painting had previously been offered at Sotheby’s in New York in November 1992, where it realised US$1.1 million – 27 years later, its value in dollars was close to US$50 million.

Hockney had met Geldzahler at Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory’ in 1963. “Henry and I got on along instantly,” Hockney said later, recalling that they bonded over a love of opera, painting, Cuban cigars and that they shared the same birthday – 9 July.

Nichols Canyon by David Hockney

Nichols Canyon © David Hockney 1980

3. £30.7M for David Hockney's Nichols Canyon

Nichols Canyon captures the Hollywood Hills neighbourhood where Hockney lived in 1980. The artist drove through this landscape every day on his way to his studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. “The moment you live up here, you get a different view of Los Angeles. First of all these wiggly lines seem to enter your life, and they entered the paintings,” Hockney recalled. The painting sold for nearly US$41.1 million at Phillips in New York on 7 December 2020.

The Splash by David Hockney

The Splash © David Hockney 1966

DAVID HOCKNEY GUIDES