Art from David Hockney’s Paper Pools series makes a £4.8million splash
- Pool on a Cloudy Day with Rain has sold for £4,867,900 at Sotheby’s in London
- The picture, one of 29 made in 1978, was being sold by an anonymous collector
- Experts describe piece as ‘a dazzling testament to Hockney’s virtuosity in the medium of colour and form’
An artwork from David Hockney’s celebrated Paper Pools series sold at auction for £4,867,900 last night.
Pool on a Cloudy Day with Rain (Paper Pool 22) is one of the 29 pictures Hockney made during six weeks of experimental activity in 1978. The seller at the evening sale at Sotheby’s in London was an anonymous collector.
Experts describe the 72in by 85in piece as ‘a dazzling testament to Hockney’s virtuosity in the medium of colour and form, and his unwavering receptivity to new stimuli’.
To create the Paper Pool pictures, first a drawing was done to create an image and a mould made for each section of it, into which coloured paper pulp was poured before being compressed so that, under pressure, the final image is part of the actual paper.
Pool on a Cloudy Day with Rain (Paper Pool 22) is one of the 29 pictures Hockney made during six weeks of experimental activity in 1978. It sold at auction for £4,867,900 last night
Hockney discovered the technique after he misplaced his driving licence while returning to California and was forced to stay in suburban New York with his friend the master printer Kenneth Tyler, who introduced him to it.
It was Tyler’s swimming pool that featured in some of the series of pictures that Hockney then produced.
Bradford-born Hockney had relocated to Los Angeles in 1966 and was already well known for his earlier paintings of Hollywood swimming pools.
Hockney, once said of how the Paper Pools came about: ‘I didn’t intend for it to, actually… He [Tyler] started showing me some things he had been working with that had been made with paper pulp… and they were stunningly beautiful…
‘The upshot of it was that he convinced me to stay three days, to give it a try, and in the end we found out that we had worked 45 days running with only one day off – it was that exciting, really… I must confess that I love a new medium.’
Hockney never used the technique again but has since embraced other new methods. While isolating at his home in France during lockdown, he created a set of images drawn on his iPad depicting springtime in his Normandy garden.
Artist David Hockney, pictured in 2015, had relocated to Los Angeles in 1966 and was already well known for his earlier paintings of Hollywood swimming pools
A self-portrait by the great Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn sold for £14,549,400 at the same auction, setting a new record for a self-portrait by the artist at auction.
Chased by six determined bidders, ‘Self-portrait, wearing a ruff and black hat’ soared above its pre-sale estimate of £12-16 million in Sotheby’s pioneering cross-category evening sale, eclipsing the previous record of £6..9 million set for a self-portrait by the artist in 2003.
An artist captivated with his own image, Rembrandt recorded his own physiognomy in no fewer than 80 paintings, etchings and drawings, throughout almost the entire span of his career.
At the event on Tuesday night, Banksy’s Mediterranean Sea View raised £2.2 million – after a seven-minute bidding battle – far more than its £800,000-£1.2 million estimate.
A Sotheby’s spokesman said it was the second highest price for the artist at auction. All proceeds will go towards building a new acute stroke unit and purchasing children’s rehabilitation equipment for BASR hospital in Bethlehem.
The auction was for Sotheby’s a first-of-its-kind cross-category Evening Sale, bringing together over 500 years of art history.