Conversation in the Studio
from Moving Focus 

Medium: Lithograph in colors on TGL handmade paper
Year: 1984
Image: 51×67 cm (20 1/8 x 26 3/8 inches)
Sheet: 61.5 x 73.7 cm (24 1/4 x 29 inches)
Edition: 45
Artist’s Proofs: 12
Publisher: Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village, New York
Literature: Tyler Graphics (271), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (260)

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil with the publisher’s blindstamp

Conversation in the Studio of 1984 is a deceptively simple subversion of what we might perceive to be a dialogue between friends. Instead, we are met with an empty studio in which the chairs, tables and pots are in conversation with each other. With a limited primary palette of reds, mustard yellows and aqua blues, Hockney depicts in a child-like scrawl an interior scene from different vantage points. The diagonal floorboards are cut off by an oblong shelf, awkwardly situated as a blocky, boxed-off frame against a strangely disjointed room. Leaving isometric lines at the wayside, Hockney disregards traditional perspective and instead leans into a liberated, light-hearted style that compliments his wry humor and experimental approach to printmaking.

“The eye is always moving; if it isn’t moving you are dead. When my eye moves the perspective alters according to the way I’m looking, so it’s constantly changing…”

For Hockney, single-point perspective is a limited, constrictive way of communicating our experience of the world, which he likens to “looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed Cyclops – for a split second.” Inspired by the Cubism of Picasso’s 1980 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Hockney embraced a pictorial structure accommodating multiple viewpoints, time, and movement. Exploring perspective through the empty chairs becomes a recurring motif in Hockney’s work. The chairs function as narrative devices, not only lending themselves to playful optical trickery but prompting us to imagine their missing occupant. By frustrating our desire for a person, or sitter, Hockney further subverts traditional hierarchical by placing emphasis not on a figure but on the furniture itself.

Conversation in the Studio is part of Hockney’s wider Moving Focus series of 1984-86, his largest and most ambitious print collective to date. Born out of his relocation to California, Hockney crossed paths with master printer Kenneth Tyler, immediately sparking a creative camaraderie that united Tyler’s unmatched technical prowess with Hockney’s insatiable artistic appetite. Typified by vibrant color, ambitious large-scale formats and multi-layered vantage points, Hockney is in constant dialogue with the medium, unabashedly shifting and experimenting with the visual language, and in doing so, is able to transform his subjects into a fantastical other-world of color and vision.

Source: Phillips

Auction Results

Christie’s New-York: 25 October 2024
Estimated: USD 25,000 – 35,000
USD 37,800

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Conversation in the Studio, from Moving Focus (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 260), 1984
Lithograph in colors on white TGL handmade paper in the original hand-painted artist’s frame
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 6⁄45 (there were also twelve artist’s proofs)

Phillips London: 19 September 2024
Estimated: GBP 20,000 – 30,000
GBP 27,940 / USD 35,428

Christie’s online: 19 July 2023
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 37,800

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Conversation in the Studio, from Moving Focus, 1984
Lithograph in colors on TGL handmade paper in the original hand-painted artist’s frame
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 29/45 (there were also twelve artist’s proofs)

Phillips London: 13 September 2022
Estimated: GBP 20,000 – 30,000
GBP 52,920 / USD 61,860

DAVID HOCKNEY
Conversation in the Studio, from Moving Focus (T.G. 271, M.C.A.T. 260), 1984
Lithograph in colors on TGL handmade paper
Signed, dated and numbered 12/45 in pencil
Contained in the original hand-painted wooden frame designed by the artist