Self-Portrait
Medium: Lithograph printed in colors on wove paper with hand additions in pen and ink
Year: 1954
Sheet: 11×10 inches (29.8 x 25.8 cm)
Edition: 5 known impressions
Printer: The Artist, Bradford
Literature: Scottish Arts Council (1), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (1)
Signed and dated in blue ink
This is the artist’s first print, executed while a student in Bradford.
This early lithograph belongs to a small group of self-portraits which David Hockney made at the age of seventeen, while a student at Bradford College of Art. It depicts the young artist seated in the front bedroom of his childhood home at 18 Hutton Terrace, Eccleshill, which he had converted into a makeshift studio.
This arrangement caused his mother Laura some distress. Lamenting in her diary “Our front bedroom is in a terrible state. What it is to have an artist son!! He is doing a full-length portrait of himself and has the wardrobe mirror dismantled and propped up where he can see it – a table littered with paints – brushes – etc – but he dropped paint on the carpet just where he hadn’t covered it with newspapers!”
The painting to which she refers is the earliest of the self-portraits, a three-quarter view of the artist, with a tousled fringe, executed in the muted tones of the Euston Road School. The youthful reticence conveyed by this painting is very different to the self-assured, frontal pose of the lithograph which followed shortly after. At the time Hockney was a great admirer of the painter Stanley Spencer, and in his printed self-portrait he self-consciously models his appearance on that of the older artist. With his hair cut in a fringe, wearing Spencer-esque prescription glasses, Hockney shows his feeling of confraternity with Spencer, declaring his newfound identity as an artist.
Hockney made his first lithographs at the Bradford College of Art under the tutelage of Derek Stafford, who regarded the young artist as one of the most talented students he had ever taught and encouraged him to apply for a place at the Royal College of Art. This early self-portrait has been described by Mark Glazebrook, former Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, as “positively prophetic in its fluent use of line, its bright color, its technical experimentation and in its direct, confident, quirky self-presentation.”
One of three lithographs from 1954, Self-portrait is one of his earliest forays into printmaking, an artform which Hockney has employed extensively throughout his career. This lithograph, comprising five separate zinc plates, one for each color, is technically ambitious for a first attempt. Undaunted by the complexities of inking and registration, the young Hockney clearly relished its facility for vibrant areas of flat color and patterned effect. Evoking the intimiste domestic interiors of Vuillard and Bonnard, he transmutes the familiar surroundings of his Bradford home into hues of saffron yellow and magenta red, an imaginative leap which perfectly illustrates his credo.
“The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty you know you’re an artist.”
Handprinted by the young artist, no doubt using an art department press, the very few surviving proofs are often slightly misregistered, with corrections in pencil or ink, the margins ink thumbed and a little tulgey. Of the five known impressions, three are printed with a flesh tone on the hands and face. The remaining two, including this example, are pale yellow in these areas. Unlike the professionally printed etchings and lithographs he would later make with master printers from around the world, Self-portrait is endearingly handmade, and a very personal testament of the young artist.
Source: Christie’s
Auction Results
Christie’s London: 21 March 2019
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 60,000 / USD 78,760
DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Self-Portrait, 1954
Lithograph printed in colors with hand additions in pen and ink on wove paper
Signed and dated in blue ink
One of only five known impressions
This impression was given to the artist’s mother, Laura Hockney, who in turn, on her death in 1999, bequeathed it her youngest son, John Hockney.
Christie’s London: 17 February 2012
Estimated: GBP 15,000 – 20,000
GBP 22,500 / USD 35,580
DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Self-portrait (Scottish Arts Council 1; Tokyo 1), 1954
Lithograph in colors on cartridge paper
Signed David H. and indistinctly dated 1964, inscribed For Mr Maddox in ink
A rare proof of the yellow, grey and black lithographic stones
(the S.A.C. records approximately five impressions with five colors)
This impression was given in 1964 to Reggie Maddox, Hockney’s art teacher at Bradford Grammar School.
Christie’s New-York: 1 November 1998
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 20,000
USD 23,000
DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Self-Portrait (Scottish Arts Council 1), 1954
Lithograph in colors on wove paper
Signed and dated in ink
One of approximately five proofs
