Little-known David Hockney work to go on display as interest in Yorkshire star's work ramps up
A work by David Hockney will take centre stage at an art fair today, hours before another of his works is offered for sale. Steve Teale reports.
It was no doubt a sad coincidence that a landmark art fair which is being staged in London should feature a little-known work by David Hockney, coming as it does just weeks after the Bradford artist’s death.
A pair of early self-portraits from 1973, when Hockney was in his mid-30s, is going on show at the Treasure House Fair, an annual event with echoes of fairs dating back to the 1930s.
The work is called The Student: Homage to Picasso. It is an etching and aquatint, and is hand signed.
News of the work featuring in this exhibition comes after the artist died aged 88 at his London home on June 11.
His demise has sparked yet more interest in his work and it will be one of the stars of the fair to be staged at Royal Hospital Chelsea. It opens today (Jun 25) and runs until Tuesday June 30.
Continuing a tradition of London summer art fairs established in 1934, Treasure House Fair returns with a trove of masterpieces, discoveries and curiosities worthy of the wonders that once captivated its first royal patron, Queen Mary, and generations of collectors since.
Sixty galleries have convened on the historical grounds of the Royal Hospital.
A “treasure house” of the rare and the beautiful, the historical and the whimsical, this edition will take visitors on a journey through marvels spanning millennia and continents, from a 25,000-year-old woolly mammoth head and Galileo’s first drawings of the surface of the moon to the iconic colour photograph of Earth captured aboard Apollo 8 in 1968.
Other highlights include: furniture fit for a queen and her pet, including the luxurious dog house of Marie Antoinette’s beloved dog, a table made for Queen Mary II’s bedroom at Kensington Palace, and a pair of commodes owned by Madame de Pompadour, valued at £3m; storied jewels and objects from the era of Henry VIII and Shakespeare.
A squashed piano called Bangers and Mash, a new work by Alex Chinneck, makes its debut at the event.
Harry van der Hoorn, owner and co-founder of Treasure House Fair, said: “The fair’s outlook remains resolutely international, with 20 per cent of exhibitors travelling from America and Europe. We actively support this global participation by providing assistance with shipping, logistics and import documentation, ensuring a seamless experience for all.”
Meanwhile, work by L S Lowry and Hockney featured during a photocall for the Modern British and Irish art at Bonhams in London. The modern art sale last night included 11 works by by Lowry and a celebration of editions by Hockney.
Later, a Hockney work called The Only One With Waves (1991) which he painted after buying a home in Malibu will be auctioned tomorrow 9Jun 26) by Phillips in London.
Phillips say it “encapsulates Hockney's engagement with the Southern Californian coast and his enduring fascination with water as both subject and sensation”.