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148 David Hockney (1937) Picture of Melrose Avenue in an Ornate Gold Frame signed in pencil ‘david hockney’
Hockney’s ‘rake’ (himself) is a young artist and gay man struggling to find his way in New York. A few years later, after settling in Los Angeles, he completed a series of lithographs entitled A Hollywood Collection, which reflects the city’s artificial beauty. Hockney’s idea for an “instant art collection,” this series includes printed illusionistic frames based on frames he saw at a shop next to Gemini Ltd., where the project was created. (Deborah Wye, Artists and Prints: Masterworks from The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004, p. 176)
An accomplished painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer, David Hockney began showcasing his talent as a draftsman while studying at his hometown’s Bradford School of Art as a teenager. At London’s Royal College of Art in the early 1960’s, he worked in a style that combined figuration, abstraction, and text, which identified him with the British Pop Art movement. His work, however, defies categorization. It consists of still lives and portraits rendered with delicacy and frankness and, after moving to Los Angeles, has included bold, colourful images of California’s sun-drenched settings. Rooted in his personal relationships, his homosexuality, and his literary interests and travels, Hockney’s art is, above all, deeply autobiographical. Printmaking has played a central role in Hockney’s practice, and many of his most significant early works take the form of narrative print series. The linearity of etching matches his natural inclination for drawing, and lithography allows him to explore dazzling colour. He has also made editions with paper pulp and inventive prints using a photocopy machine. In all, Hockney has created more than five hundred prints, collaborating with celebrated printers and workshops in Europe and America and also experimenting on his own. The artist’s initial trip to New York, in 1961, inspired his first major group of etchings, A Rake’s Progress, which reinterprets the famous cycle of eighteenth-century engravings by William Hogarth. With great wit and candor,
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(lower right) lithograph in colours on Rives BFK, annotated in pencil ‘trial proof V’ (there were 12 artist’s proofs and 4 trial proofs besides the edition of 85 numbered copies), image & full sheet 77x56,5 cm From the portfolio ‘A Hollywood Collection’. Published in 1965 by Editions Alecto, London, and printed at Gemini Ltd., Los Angeles. Literature: ‘David Hockney, Paintings, prints and drawings 1960-1970’, The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1970, p. 83, no. P. 25/4, another copy illustrated. €4,000 - €6,000 149 David Hockney (1937) Gregory reclining (MCA Tokyo 198) signed in blue crayon ‘david hockney’ (lower left), lithograph, numbered 25/28, unframed, image & full sheet 65x49,5 cm Published in 1975 by Gemini Ltd., Los Angeles. €1,800 - €2,200
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