Glass Table with Objects
Medium: Lithograph printed in colors on BFK Rives mould-made paper
Year: 1969
Sheet: 17 3/4 x 22 1/4 inches (45 x 56.3 cm)
Edition: 75
Artist’s Proofs: 16 AP
Publisher: Petersburg Press, London
Printer: Atelier Desjobert, Paris
Literature: Scottish Arts Council (68), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (65)
Signed, dated and numbered in pencil
“Although I am a figurative artist, I am very conscious of all that has happened in art during the last seventy-five years.
I don’t ignore it;
I feel I’ve tried to assimilate it into my kind of art.”
Held in the same private collection since 1971, A Glass Table with Still Life (1969) is a charming example of David Hockney’s evocative and experimental interior drawings. Executed in fine, delicate lines of graphite and colored pencil, Hockney presents us with a large glass table with metal legs, three objects scattered haphazardly along its surface. Pared-back and stylized, the present work is characterized by its playful handling of space and surface, foregrounding the artist’s formalist preoccupations of the period.
‘I was becoming more aware of and interested in the possibilities of specific light sources and shadows. They can put more space in the picture; they can also make it look more ‘academic’ … the pursuit and examination of ideas which were new to me were more important than what this picture looked like’
A Glass Table with Still Life is a product of this early experimentation. Hockney skillfully observes the glossy, metallic legs of the table, the diagonal pink shadows suggesting their solid, cylindrical shape; meanwhile, the three sculptural objects along the table’s surface echo its flat blue edge, appearing more like flat paper cut-outs. While recalling decorative household objects, the form on the left bearing the shimmering, jewel-like surface of Murano glass, the three erected objects are intended purely as formal devices, their whimsical appearance a testament to the artist’s early technique.
Christie’s London: 21 March 2023
Estimated: GBP 80,000 – 120,000
GBP 176,400
DAVID HOCKNEY, O.M., C.H., R.A. (B. 1937), A Glass Table with Still Life | Christie’s
DAVID HOCKNEY, O.M., C.H., R.A. (B. 1937)
A Glass Table with Still Life, 1969
Pencil and colored crayon on paper
14×17 inches (35.6 x 43.2 cm)
Signed with initials, inscribed and dated ‘a glass table with still life/DH. 1969’ (lower right)
A Glass Table with Still Life belongs to a series of works which depict the large, square glass table in Hockney’s studio, an object famously depicted in the paintings Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott (1969), Portrait of Sir David Webster (1971) and Still Life on a Glass Table (1971-1972). In 1971, following the break-up from his first love and great muse Peter Schlesinger, the artist eradicated all people from his work, channeling his feelings of grief and loneliness into portraits of inanimate objects. In Still Life on a Glass Table, a painting prefigured by the present work, Hockney substitutes abstract forms for objects which had either belonged to or were particularly loved by Schlesinger, who owned a collection of Lalique glassware. Stylized against a large expanse of virgin paper, and bathed in a glorious swath of light and shadow, A Glass Table with Still Life is a superb early example of the masterful optical rigour that lies at the heart of David Hockney’s oeuvre.
Auction Results
Bonhams London: 25 June 2025
Estimated: GBP 5,000 – 7,000
GBP 7,680 / USD 10,520
DAVID HOCKNEY (British, born 1937)
Glass Table with Objects (Scottish Arts Council 68; M.C.A. Tokyo 65), 1969
Lithograph in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Signed, dated and inscribed ‘Trial proof’ in pencil
A rare proof aside from the numbered edition of 75
This is a unique trial proof where the registration marks are differently placed than those in the regular numbered edition. The subject of the table is to the right of the sheet rather than at the center.
Sotheby’s London: 15 November 2023
Estimated: GBP 1,500 – 2,500
GBP 6,350 / USD 7,935
DAVID HOCKNEY (b. 1937)
Glass Table with Objects (S.A.C. 68; MCA Tokyo 65), 1969
Lithograph printed in colours on BFK Rives mould-made paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 29/75
Christie’s London: 18 March 2020
Estimated: GBP 2,500 – 3,500
GBP 2,500 / USD 2,645
DAVID HOCKNEY (B. 1937)
Glass Table with Objects, 1969
Lithograph in colours on BFK Rives wove paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 45/75