French Shop

Medium: Etching with aquatint printed in black and red on wove paper
Year: 1971
Image: 21 x 17 3/4 inches (53.3 x 45.1 cm)
Sheet: 24 3/4 x 20 7/8 inches (62.9 x 53.1 cm)
Edition: 500
Artist’s Proofs: 60 (numbered in Roman numerals)
Publisher: The Observer, London
Printer: Shirley Clement of the Print Shop, Amsterdam
Literature: Scottish Arts Council (122), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (112)

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil

David Hockney’s 1971 French Shop depicts the exterior of a small local food shop in Miers, in the Dordogne region of southwest France, drawn from life while the artist was there to visit a small spa. Hockney depicts a homely, matter-of-fact building, with darkened windows and isometric edges assuming the whole composition. Printed in monochrome, we are made aware of Hockney’s assiduous eye for detail and masterful handling of various techniques. The face of the shop is subsumed in a grey tone fashioned through precise cross-hatching, in front of which Hockney renders a plant with delicate delineation. Contrasted with the hollow darkness of the aquatint windows, Hockney brings to life the otherwise ordinary building through different layering of techniques, creating texture within the ashen greys. Championing the medium with ease and innovation, Hockney further developed his unique approach to etching in a period of rapid productivity following his split from long-term partner Peter Schlesinger. Hockney immersed himself in printmaking, working from daybreak to sunset.

“Whereas with Peter I often went out in the evening, from then on I didn’t. For about three months I was working fourteen, fifteen hours a day. There was nothing else I wanted to do. It was a way of coping with life. It was very lonely.”

His artistic output from 1970-71 was prolific. Travelling extensively between Morocco, New York, Japan and France during this period, there is a sense of absence and longing reflected in his printmaking of this time. There is a palpable solemnity in his works that appear devoid of human presence, as if someone had just been – but was now gone. Filmmaker Jack Hazan began to document Hockney’s daily life during this period, including his disintegrating relationship with Schlesinger and his subsequent intensive production in the studio that resulted in the semi-fictionalized A Bigger Splash three years later – a film accompanying Hockney’s monumental painting of 1972 conceived in his period of intense focus, which remains at the forefront of contemporary art today.

Auction Results

Christie’s New-York: 23 October 2025
Estimated: USD 5,000 – 7,000
USD 6,985

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
French Shop (Scottish Arts Council 122; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 112), 1971
Etching and aquatint on Rives BFK mould-made paper
Signed and dated in pencil, a proof aside from the edition of 500

Christie’s online: 27 March 2025
Estimated: GBP 3,000 – 5,000
GBP 5,670 / USD 7,314

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
French Shop (MCAT 112), 1971
Etching with aquatint in black and red on wove paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 70/500
(there were also sixty proofs numbered in Roman numerals on a different paper)

Sotheby’s New-York: 22 October 2024
Estimated: USD 6,000 – 8,000
USD 5,400

DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
French Shop (Scottish Arts Council 122; M.C.A.T. 112), 1971
Etching with aquatint in black and red on Rives BFK wove paper
Sheet: 24 1/2 x 21 inches (62.4 x 53.4 cm)
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 127/500

Phillips London: 19 September 2024
Estimated: GBP 6,000 – 8,000
GBP 11,430 / USD 14,848

Phillips London: 6 June 2024
Estimated: GBP 6,000 – 8,000
GBP 9,525 / USD 12,185

DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
French Shop, 1971
Etching with aquatint in black and red on wove paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 346/500

Phillips London: 21 September 2023
Estimated: GBP 4,000 – 6,000
GBP 11,430 / USD 14,090

DAVID HOCKNEY (b.1937)
French Shop (MCA Tokyo 112), 1971
Etching with aquatint on BFK Rives paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered from the edition of 500

Phillips London: 19 January 2023
Estimated: GBP 6,000 – 8,000
GBP 12,600 / USD 15,480
AUCTION RECORD FOR FRENCH SHOP

Sotheby’s London: 23 September 2022
Estimated: GBP 3,000 – 5,000
GBP 7,560 / USD 8,515

DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
French Shop (Scottish Arts Council 122; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 112), 1971
Etching with aquatint printed in black and red
Signed in pencil, dated, from the edition of 500

Bonhams London: 27 April 2022
Estimated: GBP 3,000 – 5,000
GBP 7,650 / USD 9,625