Ian Falconer’s dachshund Heinz takes center stage in this home-made print by David Hockney. Reminiscent in composition of the Futurist painting Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) by Giacomo Balla, Hockney’s home-made prints similarly celebrate a technological advancement. Balla’s Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash was inspired by the developments in chronophotography that took place from the late 1880s onwards. Improvements in the sensitivity of photographic emulsions allowed photographers like Eadweard Muybridge to produce studies of animals in motion. Futurists such as Balla were inspired by these images and used them to inform their depictions of movement, encapsulated in his 1912 painting of a dachshund. In contrast, Hockney’s home-made prints commemorate the multi-function printer which rose to prominence in the 1980s. Allowing him to photocopy and print sheets repeatedly, Hockney was able to replicate the process of colour printmaking without the need to visit a workshop. The spontaneity that this process afforded the artist is exemplified in Ian and Heinz through the simplified forms and textured surface of Ian’s leg, as Hockney sought to quickly capture the endearing companionship between pet and master.

Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912). Image: Albright Knox Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence, Artwork: © DACS 2022

Falconer and Hockney had first met in 1980. They enjoyed a romantic relationship between 1981 and 1983, living together in Los Angeles, before splitting in 1983. Despite this, they remained friends, with Falconer living just down the road from Hockney in Los Angeles for a time. Heinz the dachshund was the push that Hockney needed to get a dog of this own, and he welcomed Stanley and Little Boodgie over the next few years. This home-made print of Heinz anticipates Hockney’s later work Dog Days (1995), a tribute to his two beloved dachshunds, comprised of 45 paintings. Hockney’s depictions of Heinz, Stanley and Little Boodgie are in good art historical company, as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol both immortalized their pet dachshunds – called Lump and Archie respectively – through their artworks too.