Provenance
James Kirkman, London
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1998
Literature
Studio International, vol. 188, no. 971, London, November 1974 (illustrated on front and back cover)
Catalogue Essay
The stylistic rendering of David Hockney’s fellow artist and dear friend Ron (R.B.) Kitaj illustrates the artist’s unmatched ability to capture his subjects in a specific moment in time. Depicted reading in his London library, Kitaj stands in front of bookshelves overflowing with artistic inspiration: art monographs are interspersed with framed homages to the work of Modern Masters and contemporaneous artists whom he admired. In vibrant blocks of color and illustrations that reflect the close level of introspection with which Hockney approached his drawings, he has captured the true essence of Kitaj, who was defined by his love of art, pop culture and literature. Depicted wearing a pink sweater vest, a green collared shirt and cargo pants, Kitaj is instantly recognizable by his beard. His gaze is directed down at the book in his hands, highlighting his reputation as an avid reader and wordsmith. Indeed, Kitaj was as much a renowned professor as he was an artist, both passions that Hockney has succeeded in encapsulating. He also captured what Tate Britain curator Chris Stephens describes as “not just the form of the body, its attire and setting, but the personality of the sitter and a sense of time” (Chris Stephens, “Close Looking” in David Hockney, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2017, p. 96).

Executed in 1974, the present work highlights the enduring friendship between Hockney and Kitaj, who met as students at the Royal College of Art in London in 1959, when Kitaj was immediately struck by his classmate’s prowess as a draughtsman. Kitaj recalled his first impression of Hockney fondly: “we were in the Cast Room and I watched him spend his first week drawing a skeleton. It was the most beautiful drawing I had ever seen in an art school. I offered him £5 for it and he accepted…We became close friends very quickly, and have been like brothers ever since” (R.B. Kitaj, quoted in Peter Webb, Portrait of David Hockney, London, 1988, p. 22). Until Kitaj’s death in 2008, the two artists influenced each other’s practices, both equally passionate for observational figure drawing that would come to define their practices.

Hockney echoed the statements made by Kitaj, calling him “the artist who influenced me most strongly…It’s partly because I’ve always admired his art enormously…and also because he opened my eyes a great deal and I always think of things beginning from particular moments when I discussed things with him. I think of my painting beginning properly then” (David Hockney, quoted in Mark Glazebrook, “David Hockney: An Interview” in David Hockney Paintings, prints and drawings 1960-1970, exh. cat., The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1970, pp. 9-10). It was Kitaj who was repeatedly credited as Hockney’s greatest influence for the renowned double portraits begun in the late 1960s, in which he began to explore the relationship between figures and the interior spaces that ground them. The mastery of this is exemplified in the present drawing of Kitaj in his home, where the importance of the library setting is paramount to the finished composition.

Created three years after Hockney’s split from his romantic partner Peter Schlesinger, the present work was made during what is perhaps the most prolific time in the artist’s career. The colored crayon drawings beginning in 1971 are often considered the finest in Hockney’s oeuvre, together serving as an autobiography telling the stories of the portraitist’s travels and experiences with friends. During this time Hockney drew wherever he went, seeking salvation from his heartbreak in his practice. Other subjects depicted in these drawings include Man Ray, Andy Warhol, Celia Birtwell and Henry Geldzahler, each of whom he studied in various settings around the world. Expanding on these early 1970s drawings, Marco Livingstone points out, “the almost reverential attentiveness…is evident in Hockney’s delicately rendered drawings in colored crayons, which reach their highest level in…1972 and 1973 after separating from Peter. All of these works…were crucial markers in his conscious return to the human figure—a rejection of the conceptualist and minimalist modes then in the ascendant” (Marco Livingstone, “The Human Dimension”, in David Hockney, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2017, p. 252). It was exactly this embracement of figure drawing that has come to define Hockney’s successful career today, helping to establish the artist as one of the most successful portraitists in contemporary art.
Artist Biography
David Hockney
David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most well-known and celebrated artists of the
20th and 21st centuries. He works across many mediums, including painting, collage,
and more recently digitally, by creating print series on iPads. His works show semi-
abstract representations of domestic life, human relationships, floral, fauna, and the
changing of seasons.

Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal
Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many
other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90
million.

View More Works

Important works by David Hockney from an Esteemed European Collection

28

David Hockney

Ron Kitaj Reading

signed twice with the artist’s initials and dated “DH. 74” lower right
colored crayon and graphite on paper
16 7/8 x 27 3/4 in. (42.9 x 70.5 cm.)
Executed in 1974.

Estimate
$800,000 - 1,200,000

Contact Specialist
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+1 212 940 1278
aloiacono@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 15 November 2018

1
Christina Quarles
Pull on Thru Tha Nite
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $225,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
2
KAWS
UNTITLED (FATAL GROUP)
Estimate $700,000 - 900,000
Sold for $2,716,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
3
George Condo
Dreaming Nude
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,095,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
4
Joan Miró
Femme dans la nuit
Estimate $12,000,000 - 18,000,000
Sold for $22,590,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
5
Alexander Calder
Conique noir
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,335,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
6
Alberto Burri
Grande legno e rosso
Estimate $10,000,000 - 15,000,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
7
Robert Motherwell
Open No. 153: In Scarlet with White Line
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,295,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
8
Bruce Nauman
Double Slap in the Face
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $435,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
9
Bruce Nauman
Masturbating Man
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,757,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
10
Jean Dubuffet
Le malentendu
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,250,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
11
Jean Dubuffet
Mademoiselle mine orange
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $1,755,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
12
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,575,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
13
Andy Warhol
Gun
Estimate $7,000,000 - 10,000,000
Sold for $9,540,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
14
Kerry James Marshall
Terra Incognita
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,775,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
15
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate $9,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,000,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
16
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (714-1)
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,295,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
17
Albert Oehlen
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,515,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
18
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
19
Amy Sillman
U
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $855,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
20
Sean Scully
Landline Red Veined
Estimate $900,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,515,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
21
Ed Clark
The Dome
Estimate $120,000 - 180,000
Sold for $125,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
22
Mark Rothko
Black Blue Painting
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $4,215,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
23
Jackson Pollock
Number 16
Estimate On Request
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
24
Henri Laurens
La Lune
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $2,175,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
25
Pierre Bonnard
Place Clichy ou les deux élégantes
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $807,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
26
Rembrandt Bugatti
Lion et lionne de Nubie
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,095,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
27
KAWS
CLEAN SLATE
Estimate $900,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,995,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
28
David Hockney
Ron Kitaj Reading
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
29
This lot is no longer available.
30
Jonas Wood
Michael and Leslie
Estimate $450,000 - 550,000
Sold for $580,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
31
Giorgio Morandi
Natura morta
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,935,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
32
Wayne Thiebaud
Food Bowls
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,635,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
33
Donald Judd
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $900,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
34
Carmen Herrera
Blanco y Verde
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,655,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
35
Dan Flavin
untitled (to Philip Johnson)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
36
David Hammons
African American Flag
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,657,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
37
Kerry James Marshall
We Mourn Our Loss #1
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
38
This lot is no longer available.
39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Marlene Dumas
Cultural Exchange (Mummie wants to go home)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $975,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
41
Karin Mamma Andersson
The Blank Memories Always Open From the South
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $162,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 15 November 2018

Create your first list.

Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

David Hockney

28

David Hockney

Ron Kitaj Reading

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.

Create your first list.