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David Hockney|A Hollywood Collection

David Hockney's 'A Hollywood Collection' is a 1965 portfolio of six colour lithographs. Each print shows a different kind of picture in its own printed frame, from a still life to an abstraction. Hockney made them at Gemini in Los Angeles, and Editions Alecto published each in an edition of 85.

All A Hollywood Collection Works By David Hockney (7)

Significance & Analysis

The set is Hockney's joke about owning art, and the project that began his long partnership with the master printer Kenneth Tyler. In 1965 Tyler, who had just opened his Gemini print workshop in Los Angeles, invited Hockney to make a set of lithographs with a Los Angeles theme. Hockney answered with an art collection ready to hang in a Hollywood home.

A collection in a portfolio

Hockney called the set "a kind of joke thing": "a kind of home-made art collection with bits of everything in it". The six images cover the genres such a collection might hold: a still life, a landscape, a portrait, a city street, a traditional nude drawing and an abstraction. The idea for the frames came from the building itself. Gemini's workshop sat behind a framer's shop, and Hockney remembered the "marvellous frames in the window". Each title names the frame along with the picture it holds, from 'an Elaborate Silver Frame' to 'Framed Under Glass', so the presentation becomes part of the subject.

The editions

Gemini was then a print shop rather than a publisher, so the portfolio was published in London by Editions Alecto, the publisher of Hockney's etchings. Tyler supervised the printing, on Rives BFK paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired a set in 1967.

Before and after

Before it came 'A Rake's Progress' (1961–63), Hockney's series of etchings, also published by Editions Alecto. 'A Hollywood Collection' turned to colour lithography, made with a printer in Los Angeles rather than in London. In 1966 he returned to etching for 'Illustrations for Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy', again for Editions Alecto. The partnership outlasted Gemini, which Tyler left in 1973. His later workshop, Tyler Graphics, published Hockney's 'Lithograph of Water Made of Lines' in 1978.

How Many Proofs of A Hollywood Collection Were Printed?

Museum records give 12 artist's proofs and four trial proofs alongside the 85 numbered impressions of each lithograph, 101 impressions of each image in all. Some auction catalogues count the artist's proofs differently, as 16 or 17.

Are the Prints in A Hollywood Collection Signed?

Yes. Each of the six lithographs is signed 'David Hockney' in pencil at the lower right, dated '65 and numbered out of 85. Artist's proofs carry a proof inscription in pencil in place of the edition number, for example 'artist's proof II'. Sheets sold at auction have been catalogued with Editions Alecto's ink stamp on the reverse, some with Gemini's stamps as well.

What Should a Complete Set of A Hollywood Collection Include?

A complete set has the six signed lithographs in their portfolio order: the still life (sheet 1), the landscape (2), the portrait (3), Melrose Avenue (4), the nude drawing (5) and the abstraction (6). It should also include the two text sheets issued with the portfolio, a title page and a colophon, both printed in offset lithography; the colophon is not numbered. Sets have been sold with the six prints alone, lacking the two text sheets, so a set with both is the fuller copy. Sheet numbers sometimes appear in titles, as in 'Picture of a Landscape in an Elaborate Gold Frame, 2'.

Why Did Hockney Print the Frames as Part of the Pictures?

Because the trick of the eye was the point. Hockney said he had become interested in "this trompe l'oeil thing": "a picture of a thing with something else within something else". Each image runs to the edges of its 76.8 x 56.5 cm sheet, so the frame, and in one print the glass, belong to the print itself rather than sitting around it.

Why Does the Collection Include Melrose Avenue?

Melrose Avenue was the street of Tyler's Gemini workshop, where the prints were made, so the city street in the collection is the one on which it was printed. Hockney gave it the same treatment as the traditional genres in the set: an ornate gold frame.