Los Angeles
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : UK II Hockney
Chronology : 1966 1971 1980 1984 1985 1990 2007
See also : UK II Hockney
Chronology : 1966 1971 1980 1984 1985 1990 2007
1966 The Splash by Hockney
2020 SOLD for £ 24M by Sotheby's
In 1964 the young David Hockney searches for a Heaven on earth. His plane flies over San Bernardino. His first vision of California is the pattern of pools hidden behind the bungalows, which allow the residents to discreetly practice all forms of hedonism under the bright sun.
Back in California in 1966, David is very excited by an instantaneous color photo on the cover of a swimming pool construction manual. The foreground is a diving board. The water is agitated by the splash that has just been caused by an invisible diver.
The artist copies the photo into a first painted version, A Little Splash, 40 x 50 cm. The painting liberates the theme from its documentary aspect. This scene where no character is left visible symbolizes with much more power the joy of living. The four edges of the canvas are not painted, in order to imitate the framing of a photo.
The effect is spectacular. David painstakingly executes two large acrylics, The Splash, 183 x 183 cm, before the end of the year, and A Bigger Splash, 242 x 244 cm, in the following year. The artist later had fun reminding that he spent two weeks expressing a splash that could not last more than two seconds.
The Splash was sold for £ 24M by Sotheby's on February 11, 2020, lot 16. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Hockney offers in his art an interpretation of his fantasy, without seeking realism. For example, the horizon remains inspired by the photographic model but is extended through the bungalow without it being possible to decide whether it is a perspective or a reflection. A similar surreal illusion appears in a work from the same period, Beverly Hills Housewife, sold for $ 7.9M by Christie's on May 13, 2009.
A minimalist architecture better represents Californian homes. The roof in The Splash, still in conformance with the photo from the swimming pool marketing, is indeed too classic. It will be removed in the Bigger Splash and the BH Housewife paintings.
Back in California in 1966, David is very excited by an instantaneous color photo on the cover of a swimming pool construction manual. The foreground is a diving board. The water is agitated by the splash that has just been caused by an invisible diver.
The artist copies the photo into a first painted version, A Little Splash, 40 x 50 cm. The painting liberates the theme from its documentary aspect. This scene where no character is left visible symbolizes with much more power the joy of living. The four edges of the canvas are not painted, in order to imitate the framing of a photo.
The effect is spectacular. David painstakingly executes two large acrylics, The Splash, 183 x 183 cm, before the end of the year, and A Bigger Splash, 242 x 244 cm, in the following year. The artist later had fun reminding that he spent two weeks expressing a splash that could not last more than two seconds.
The Splash was sold for £ 24M by Sotheby's on February 11, 2020, lot 16. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Hockney offers in his art an interpretation of his fantasy, without seeking realism. For example, the horizon remains inspired by the photographic model but is extended through the bungalow without it being possible to decide whether it is a perspective or a reflection. A similar surreal illusion appears in a work from the same period, Beverly Hills Housewife, sold for $ 7.9M by Christie's on May 13, 2009.
A minimalist architecture better represents Californian homes. The roof in The Splash, still in conformance with the photo from the swimming pool marketing, is indeed too classic. It will be removed in the Bigger Splash and the BH Housewife paintings.
Ocean Park by DIEBENKORN
Intro
Richard Diebenkorn studied and worked in California throughout his career. Student to Still and Rothko, he does not follow their confrontations of colors and prefers the harmony. He admires Matisse's ability to transform a three-dimensional space into juxtaposed surfaces on the canvas.
The theme of the open window is popular with landscape painters as an access to the vastness of the world. In 1912 at Tangiers and in 1914 in Collioure and Paris, Matisse keeps the window and deletes or forgets the landscape.
In 1965, Diebenkorn is dazzled by the significance of these two experimental Matisse works. He begins in 1967 his series of the Ocean Park, which is the name of the district of Santa Monica where he had just opened his studio in a room that had been once used by his friend Sam Francis.
He decides at that time to give up the figuration. The frame of the window in the Ocean Parks is always partial, opening a path to infinity as Mondrian had done. It is also an excuse for colors of man-made artefacts that contrast with the transparency of the light of Southern California.
His Ocean Park series includes approximately 135 abstract paintings from 1967 to 1985, structured by horizontal and oblique lines that delineate the zones of Californian colors with no overlap. The blue hues of sky and sea are often in opposition.
The theme of the open window is popular with landscape painters as an access to the vastness of the world. In 1912 at Tangiers and in 1914 in Collioure and Paris, Matisse keeps the window and deletes or forgets the landscape.
In 1965, Diebenkorn is dazzled by the significance of these two experimental Matisse works. He begins in 1967 his series of the Ocean Park, which is the name of the district of Santa Monica where he had just opened his studio in a room that had been once used by his friend Sam Francis.
He decides at that time to give up the figuration. The frame of the window in the Ocean Parks is always partial, opening a path to infinity as Mondrian had done. It is also an excuse for colors of man-made artefacts that contrast with the transparency of the light of Southern California.
His Ocean Park series includes approximately 135 abstract paintings from 1967 to 1985, structured by horizontal and oblique lines that delineate the zones of Californian colors with no overlap. The blue hues of sky and sea are often in opposition.
1
1969 # 20
2014 SOLD for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's
Ocean Park # 20, oil on canvas 236 x 203 cm painted in 1969, is typical of the association of the window with the bright colors of sky and sea, here displayed side by side instead of one over the other. It was sold for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2014, lot 39.
The splendid geometric simplicity of # 20 is a support for a confrontation of brilliant yellow, green, orange and peach around the two hues of blue.
The splendid geometric simplicity of # 20 is a support for a confrontation of brilliant yellow, green, orange and peach around the two hues of blue.
2
1971 # 40
2021 SOLD for $ 27M by Sotheby's
An additional maturity is reached from the numbers # 40s of the Ocean Park series, with a greater range of luminescent colors and a geometry that escapes the mere pattern of a window.
# 40 reminds the landscape viewed from the corner of a porch, in a stylization of a three-dimensional effect, previously used by the artist in 1959 in the Californian countryside. Here the porch opens to flat areas in parallel. The upper area may be the sky or the sea.
The viewer is stirred to a small deep blue quarter full circle in the bottom right corner of the marine blue. A closer attention reveals a blue window on the right and lower edges of that area, enabling to cancel the impression of an open space. It is indeed a confrontation of bright colors without a real allusion to a perspective. The lower part of the composition reminds beach and ground.
# 40, oil and charcoal on canvas 236 x 205 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 27M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 6. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This significant opus illustrated the cover page of the catalogue of a solo exhibition of the Ocean Park series at the Marlborough gallery in New York in December 1971.
# 40 reminds the landscape viewed from the corner of a porch, in a stylization of a three-dimensional effect, previously used by the artist in 1959 in the Californian countryside. Here the porch opens to flat areas in parallel. The upper area may be the sky or the sea.
The viewer is stirred to a small deep blue quarter full circle in the bottom right corner of the marine blue. A closer attention reveals a blue window on the right and lower edges of that area, enabling to cancel the impression of an open space. It is indeed a confrontation of bright colors without a real allusion to a perspective. The lower part of the composition reminds beach and ground.
# 40, oil and charcoal on canvas 236 x 205 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 27M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 6. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This significant opus illustrated the cover page of the catalogue of a solo exhibition of the Ocean Park series at the Marlborough gallery in New York in December 1971.
3
1971 # 48
2012 SOLD for $ 13.5M by Christie's
Ocean Park # 48 is a return to simple forms of window and through the window, with a delicate harmony of pale colors just confronted to a blue area splitted in two adjacent rectangles, light and deep blue. The whole is offering a view of the luminosity of ground, sky and sea as in the other works of the Ocean Park series.
# 48, oil on canvas 274 x 208 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 13.5M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 19, from a lower estimate of $ 8M.
Ocean Park # 50 displays a further step to a full geometry of horizontal and vertical rectangles and stripes from which the diagonals were nearly erased. # 50, oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1972, was sold for $ 8.2M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 23.
# 48, oil on canvas 274 x 208 cm painted in 1971, was sold for $ 13.5M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 19, from a lower estimate of $ 8M.
Ocean Park # 50 displays a further step to a full geometry of horizontal and vertical rectangles and stripes from which the diagonals were nearly erased. # 50, oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1972, was sold for $ 8.2M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 23.
4
1984 # 126
2018 SOLD for $ 24M by Christie's
From 1967 to 1985, the series of paintings titled Ocean Park is the interpretation by Richard Diebenkorn of the atmosphere and colors of Santa Monica. Seeking the dazzling light as de Staël had done, he goes further by sublimating the landscape in abstract compositions.
During these two decades the emotions of the artist were changing. He interrupts Ocean Park in 1980 after opus 125. He feels the need for a greater realization of his vision on large canvases and composes opus 126 to 140 in 1984 and 1985.
Most of the paintings of this ultimate Ocean Park series leave a significant place to the colors of the shore. The starting opus of the new style, # 126, is an abstract landscape in many colors with a structured geometry. It was sold on May 17, 2018 by Christie's for $ 24M from a lower estimate of $ 16M, lot 26 B.
This oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1984 displays the shimmering sun-filled colors of a Californian mid-day without shadows. Although the lowest stripe reflects the saturated blue of the sea, it is not a landscape. The two pairs of oblique lines have different vanishing points. A subtle reference to a reality is however provided by a small transparent triangle filled by the blue sky and small white clouds near the top of the image. The sun is a very elongated rectangle close to the upper edge.
During these two decades the emotions of the artist were changing. He interrupts Ocean Park in 1980 after opus 125. He feels the need for a greater realization of his vision on large canvases and composes opus 126 to 140 in 1984 and 1985.
Most of the paintings of this ultimate Ocean Park series leave a significant place to the colors of the shore. The starting opus of the new style, # 126, is an abstract landscape in many colors with a structured geometry. It was sold on May 17, 2018 by Christie's for $ 24M from a lower estimate of $ 16M, lot 26 B.
This oil on canvas 236 x 206 cm painted in 1984 displays the shimmering sun-filled colors of a Californian mid-day without shadows. Although the lowest stripe reflects the saturated blue of the sea, it is not a landscape. The two pairs of oblique lines have different vanishing points. A subtle reference to a reality is however provided by a small transparent triangle filled by the blue sky and small white clouds near the top of the image. The sun is a very elongated rectangle close to the upper edge.
5
1985 # 137
2018 SOLD for $ 22.6M by Christie's
On November 15, 2018, Christie's sold for $ 22.6M Ocean Park # 137, oil on canvas 254 x 206 cm painted in 1985, lot 31 C.
Within the final sub-series, 137 is the only one that appears to be almost entirely devoted to the blue of the sea. Far from being monochrome, it offers shades that lead from left to right to the dominant zone in deep blue of the open sea.
While still admiring the colors of what had been his frame of life since 1967, Diebenkorn was tired from Los Angeles. In 1986 he prospected to settle in the countryside and made his masterpiece of print, Green, 114 x 90 cm. A copy was sold for $ 530K by Sotheby's on May 2, 2014. He bought in 1987 an old house inside a vineyard in Northern California.
Within the final sub-series, 137 is the only one that appears to be almost entirely devoted to the blue of the sea. Far from being monochrome, it offers shades that lead from left to right to the dominant zone in deep blue of the open sea.
While still admiring the colors of what had been his frame of life since 1967, Diebenkorn was tired from Los Angeles. In 1986 he prospected to settle in the countryside and made his masterpiece of print, Green, 114 x 90 cm. A copy was sold for $ 530K by Sotheby's on May 2, 2014. He bought in 1987 an old house inside a vineyard in Northern California.
1980 Nichols Canyon by Hockney
2020 SOLD for $ 41M by Phillips
David Hockney could not do any more without Los Angeles. In 1978 he moves there permanently. The workshop is downside, in the plain of Santa Monica. The residence is up, in the Hollywood Hills. Everyday, morning and evening, his journey passes through Nichols Canyon. The environment is idyllic : swimming pools, palm trees, blue sky, bright colors.
The road is both winding and wide. It was built in 1925 to give the megalopolis a comfortable road escape to the north. David knows all its twists and turns. He drives with musical gestures. The melody he sings compensates for his increasing deafness.
David is not a professional musician. He is a pictorial artist. To express the pleasure of his journey, he paints in 1980 Nichols Canyon, acrylic on canvas 213 x 152 cm, with colors inspired by the vibrant exaggerations of the Fauvistes.
The musical meanders of the road cross all the space. It is a real road : its shortened name, Nichols Cyn Rd, is inscribed like on a road map. The STOP at the place where the road leaves the hills, in the foreground, marks the exit from that paradise. The red dot in the middle of the route symbolizes the artist's Mercedes-Benz.
Nichols Canyon was sold for $ 41M by Phillips on December 7, 2020, lot 10. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
David had pleasure in communicating in this work his musical style of driving in the hills. Painted ten years later with the same inspiration in a more spectacular perspective, Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, oil on canvas 198 x 305 cm, was sold for $ 28.5M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018.
The road is both winding and wide. It was built in 1925 to give the megalopolis a comfortable road escape to the north. David knows all its twists and turns. He drives with musical gestures. The melody he sings compensates for his increasing deafness.
David is not a professional musician. He is a pictorial artist. To express the pleasure of his journey, he paints in 1980 Nichols Canyon, acrylic on canvas 213 x 152 cm, with colors inspired by the vibrant exaggerations of the Fauvistes.
The musical meanders of the road cross all the space. It is a real road : its shortened name, Nichols Cyn Rd, is inscribed like on a road map. The STOP at the place where the road leaves the hills, in the foreground, marks the exit from that paradise. The red dot in the middle of the route symbolizes the artist's Mercedes-Benz.
Nichols Canyon was sold for $ 41M by Phillips on December 7, 2020, lot 10. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
David had pleasure in communicating in this work his musical style of driving in the hills. Painted ten years later with the same inspiration in a more spectacular perspective, Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, oil on canvas 198 x 305 cm, was sold for $ 28.5M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018.
1988 Montcalm Interior with Two Dogs by Hockney
2018 SOLD for $ 12.7M by Sotheby's
Subjugated by Los Angeles, David Hockney had been living since 1979 in a luxurious house on Montcalm Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. Always ready to exhibit his private life, he painted in 1988 two views of his living room sunlit by a glass roof. Large Interior offers the perspective of a fish-eye photo while Montcalm Interior with Two Dogs recreates the natural perspective.
These two works are inspired directly from the Matisse interiors by the use of pure colors, the presence of large striated surfaces and the visibility on the outside surrounding through a veranda.
The geometric arrangement of the furniture is elegant, confirming that this comfortable home is inhabited normally. Two elements remind the personality of David Hockney. The back wall is covered with his own works to help maintaining his self-satisfaction. In the view with the dogs, the piano reduced to a flying carcass is rendered useless by the increasing deafness of the artist.
Montcalm Interior with Two Dogs, oil on canvas 183 x 152 cm, was sold for $ 12.7M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
These two works are inspired directly from the Matisse interiors by the use of pure colors, the presence of large striated surfaces and the visibility on the outside surrounding through a veranda.
The geometric arrangement of the furniture is elegant, confirming that this comfortable home is inhabited normally. Two elements remind the personality of David Hockney. The back wall is covered with his own works to help maintaining his self-satisfaction. In the view with the dogs, the piano reduced to a flying carcass is rendered useless by the increasing deafness of the artist.
Montcalm Interior with Two Dogs, oil on canvas 183 x 152 cm, was sold for $ 12.7M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1990 Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica by Hockney
2018 SOLD for $ 28.5M by Sotheby's
David Hockney has his studio in Santa Monica. In the mid afternoon he returns home to Hollywood Hills by the Pacific Coast Highway. The journey is long and repetitive. In 1990 he prepares a 90-minute tape of Wagner's music on a rhythm that matches the immutable sequence of the visited landscape.
He installs a control panel and twelve speakers in his vintage red convertible Mercedes. He names My Wagner Drive this unprecedented audio-landscape work that has no meaning outside his usual transit on the highway.
At that time Hockney is not very active in his main occupation as a graphic artist. He wants his art to be happy but many of his friends are dying of AIDS. Wagner's road helps him against his doubts.
On May 16, 2018, Sotheby's sold for $ 28.5M Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, oil on canvas 198 x 305 cm painted in 1990, lot 21.
This painting is an accumulation of rare colors in closed surfaces. Its naive geometric composition meets the taste of the classical Chinese landscape that brings together several observation points for a more spectacular effect, in opposition to works inspired by photography. The winding road is the only evidence of a human intervention.
Later in a trend towards monumental painting, Hockney will divide the landscape into a grid of autonomous canvases, confirming that even when his subject is unique his point of observation is not. Painted in 1998 the 169 x 167 cm view of the Grand Canyon is an example of this once again unconventional phase. This study in fifteen parts was sold for £ 6M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2017.
He installs a control panel and twelve speakers in his vintage red convertible Mercedes. He names My Wagner Drive this unprecedented audio-landscape work that has no meaning outside his usual transit on the highway.
At that time Hockney is not very active in his main occupation as a graphic artist. He wants his art to be happy but many of his friends are dying of AIDS. Wagner's road helps him against his doubts.
On May 16, 2018, Sotheby's sold for $ 28.5M Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, oil on canvas 198 x 305 cm painted in 1990, lot 21.
This painting is an accumulation of rare colors in closed surfaces. Its naive geometric composition meets the taste of the classical Chinese landscape that brings together several observation points for a more spectacular effect, in opposition to works inspired by photography. The winding road is the only evidence of a human intervention.
Later in a trend towards monumental painting, Hockney will divide the landscape into a grid of autonomous canvases, confirming that even when his subject is unique his point of observation is not. Painted in 1998 the 169 x 167 cm view of the Grand Canyon is an example of this once again unconventional phase. This study in fifteen parts was sold for £ 6M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2017.
2007 Helter Skelter by Bradford
2018 SOLD for £ 8.7M by Phillips
The agglomeration of Los Angeles is gigantic. Mark Bradford was born there.
At the lower end of the current civilization, the city is characterized by its scraps of colored papers that the artist collects, glues and shears. His huge surfaces are a succession of tiny details, sometimes incorporating images. It is impossible to see everything in a single inspection. From a distance, the artwork appears as an endless district seen from the sky, with its entangled streets.
Bradford is an African-American. The titles of his works call for a social rather than racial reading, against the abuses of civilization towards the poor classes. Helter Skelter, for example, had been a political-racial motto of Charles Manson, the abominable White mass murderer who proclaimed himself the king of the Negroes. It is intentional : a previous artwork was titled Scorched Earth.
Helter Skelter is a suite of two artworks prepared in 2007 for an exhibition in New York in 2008. Despite their considerable size, 366 x 1036 cm for Helter Skelter I and 376 x 1107 cm for Helter Skelter II, they were displayed side by side.
Helter Skelter I was sold for £ 8.7M on March 8, 2018 by Phillips, lot 14.
It had been consigned by John McEnroe after it had covered a wall in his apartment. The enfant terrible of tennis became a gallerist in 1993 and also once tried to become a rock star. On the courts he was known for his winning aggression, with the characteristic very rare at his level to have never had a coach. McEnroe's interest in Bradford's art is a tribute to the energy of the artist. It entered after the sale in the permanent collection of the Broad Museum in Los Angeles.
Helter Skelter II was sold for $ 8.5M by Phillips on May 16, 2019, lot 24. One of the illustrations in the catalog allows to scroll the image, revealing the complexity of the altogether figurative and abstract artistic language of Mark Bradford.
Helter Skelter is also the song that pushed the Beatles and especially Paul McCartney into the style of hard rock in 1968.
At the lower end of the current civilization, the city is characterized by its scraps of colored papers that the artist collects, glues and shears. His huge surfaces are a succession of tiny details, sometimes incorporating images. It is impossible to see everything in a single inspection. From a distance, the artwork appears as an endless district seen from the sky, with its entangled streets.
Bradford is an African-American. The titles of his works call for a social rather than racial reading, against the abuses of civilization towards the poor classes. Helter Skelter, for example, had been a political-racial motto of Charles Manson, the abominable White mass murderer who proclaimed himself the king of the Negroes. It is intentional : a previous artwork was titled Scorched Earth.
Helter Skelter is a suite of two artworks prepared in 2007 for an exhibition in New York in 2008. Despite their considerable size, 366 x 1036 cm for Helter Skelter I and 376 x 1107 cm for Helter Skelter II, they were displayed side by side.
Helter Skelter I was sold for £ 8.7M on March 8, 2018 by Phillips, lot 14.
It had been consigned by John McEnroe after it had covered a wall in his apartment. The enfant terrible of tennis became a gallerist in 1993 and also once tried to become a rock star. On the courts he was known for his winning aggression, with the characteristic very rare at his level to have never had a coach. McEnroe's interest in Bradford's art is a tribute to the energy of the artist. It entered after the sale in the permanent collection of the Broad Museum in Los Angeles.
Helter Skelter II was sold for $ 8.5M by Phillips on May 16, 2019, lot 24. One of the illustrations in the catalog allows to scroll the image, revealing the complexity of the altogether figurative and abstract artistic language of Mark Bradford.
Helter Skelter is also the song that pushed the Beatles and especially Paul McCartney into the style of hard rock in 1968.
