David Hockney - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 18, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “The xerox machine is really fascinating… because I realise it’s a camera and a printing machine”
    —David Hockney

    In February 1986, David Hockney was experimenting with a photocopier when he stumbled across a new creative process that would profoundly shape his artistic output for the following months. Photocopiers had become a staple in most offices by the 1980s and were used for mundane, reproductive tasks. Yet, in the photocopier Hockney saw a device that was simultaneously a camera and a printing press. Fascinated by the potential of such a machine, his prolific experimentation resulted in a body of work he referred to as his home-made prints, a series which includes the image Celia with Chair. Ever the innovator, Hockney embraced new technologies in edition-making throughout his career, and his home-made prints afforded him yet another technique to play with, without diminishing his concerns for mark making and the layering of vibrant colours. Charming in their simple execution and engaging subject matter, Hockney’s home-made prints are the product of an artist seeking the joy of representation with any possible media.

     

    Returning to one of his most famous muses, Celia with Chair depicts the face of British fashion designer Celia Birtwell. Yet, rather than simply replicating Celia’s likeness, Hockney here demonstrates his enduring interest in Cubism and the use of multiple perspectives in one image. The room depicted in Celia with Chair is void of perspectival depth, with floor tiles jutting out at disorienting angles and multiple viewpoints of a chair combined into one abstracted form. On the easel, a canvas is situated containing Celia’s facial features depicted in a simplified and disorderly fashion, akin to Pablo Picasso’s portraits of Dora Maar. In a break from the conventions of traditional portraiture, Celia is portrayed in the picture plane through her own portrait, and it is her portrait that defines her presence in Hockney's print rather than her actual likeness. Celia with Chair serves as Hockney’s subtle but characteristically whimsical challenge to the accepted definition of a portrait, as well as an important example of his innovative home-made printing technique.

    • Literature

      Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 306

    • 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

157

Celia with Chair (M.C.A.T. 306)

1986
Home-made print executed on an office colour copy machine, on Arches Text paper, the full sheet.
S. 21.4 x 27.8 cm (8 3/8 x 10 7/8 in.)
Signed, dated and numbered 23/50 in pencil, published by the artist (with his blindstamp), unframed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£6,000 - 8,000 

Sold for £8,820

Contact Specialist

Rebecca Tooby-Desmond
Specialist, Head of Sale, Editions
T +44 207 318 4079
M +44 7502 417366
rtooby-desmond@phillips.com

Robert Kennan
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T +44 207 318 4075
M +44 7824 994 784
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Anne Schneider-Wilson
Senior International Specialist, Editions
T +44 207 318 4042
M +44 7760 864 748
aschneider-wilson@phillips.com   

 

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 18 - 19 January 2023