Panama Hat with Bow Tie on a Chair
from The Geldzahler Portfolio

Medium: Etching with aquatint and drypoint on Somerset paper
Year: 1998
Image: 23-3/4 x 15-3/4 inches (60.3 x 40 cm)
Sheet: 29-5/8 x 22-3/8 inches (75.2 x 56.8 cm)
Edition: 100
Artist’s Proofs: 15 AP
Printer: Maurice Payne, London
Publisher: The Artist and The Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, New York

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil

Created in 1998, Panama Hat with a Bow Tie on a Chair is both an intimate still life and a personal memorial. Hockney made the work for The Geldzahler Portfolio, conceived in tribute to Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994), the influential curator, critic and close friend of many of the defining artists of post-war American art. Geldzahler was particularly important to Hockney: their friendship extended over decades, and he appeared repeatedly in Hockney’s work, most famously in the monumental double portrait Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott of 1969. The portfolio brought together ten artists associated with Geldzahler—including Louise Bourgeois, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Frank Stella—and was produced to benefit the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS.

Rather than portraying Geldzahler directly, Hockney evokes a human presence through objects. A Panama hat and bow tie rest on a wooden chair, transforming the traditional still life into an understated surrogate portrait. The sitter is absent, yet the arrangement has the informality of someone who has momentarily left the room. Hockney renders the chair with broad, almost calligraphic areas of black, while the hat, bow tie and finely drawn grid beneath it are described with much lighter marks. The tension between dense aquatint and delicate etched and drypoint lines gives the image an immediacy close to drawing, a medium that remained fundamental to Hockney throughout his career.

The print was executed in etching, aquatint and drypoint on Somerset paper, printed by Maurice Payne and co-published by Hockney and the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS. It was issued in an edition of 100, with fifteen artist’s proofs, considerably larger than the edition of 75 complete Geldzahler Portfolios. Examples are held by major institutional collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Its apparent simplicity is therefore deceptive. Panama Hat with a Bow Tie on a Chair belongs to Hockney’s long tradition of transforming familiar objects, domestic interiors and personal possessions into vehicles for portraiture. Here, the empty chair and abandoned clothing become a restrained meditation on friendship and absence, particularly poignant within a portfolio created in memory of Geldzahler and in support of artists affected by the AIDS crisis.

 

 

Auction Results

Freeman’s: 27 August 2026
Estimated: USD 8,000 – 12,000
USD 20,480

DAVID HOCKNEY (British, 1937–2026)
Panama Hat with a Bow Tie on a Chair (from The Geldzahler Portfolio), 1998
Etching with aquatint and drypoint on Somerset paper
Signed and numbered 85/100 in pencil
Co-published by Estate Project for Artists with AIDS and David Hockney, New York
Printed by Maurice Payne

 

Heritage Auctions: 16 October 2025
Estimated: USD 7,000 – 9,000
USD 25,000

DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Panama Hat with a Bow Tie on a Chair, from The Geldzahler Portfolio, 1998
Aquatint, etching, and drypoint on Somerset paper
Edition 60/100 (aside from 15 artist’s proofs)
Signed, editioned, and dated in pencil along lower edge
Published by the artist and the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, New York
Printed by Maurice Payne, London

 

Christie’s New-York: 24 October 2024
Estimated: USD 8,000 – 12,000
USD 13,860

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Panama Hat with Bow Tie on a Chair, from The Geldzahler Portfolio, 1998
Etching with aquatint and drypoint on Somerset paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 71⁄100
Co-published by the artist and the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, New York