David Hockney|A Rake's Progress

'A Rake's Progress' was Hockney's first major group of etchings, and it turned his first trip to New York into a story about himself. He visited the city in July 1961 and began the plates in London that September. Hogarth's eight paintings of 1734, engraved and published in 1735, follow a young heir who squanders his fortune and ends in madness. Hockney kept most of Hogarth's titles, moved the setting to New York and cast himself, a young artist and gay man, as the rake.

The story in the plates

The rake arrives, receives his inheritance and meets the good people of Washington. He spends freely, dyes his hair blonde, drinks and marries. When the money runs out he is cast aside. Where Hogarth's rake descends into madness, Hockney's is absorbed into a conformist crowd of 'other people'. In 'Bedlam', the final plate, the crowd listens to radios and a small arrow above his head picks him out. Details came from Hockney's own experience of America, among them a Mahalia Jackson concert and a Clairol advertisement that prompted him to dye his own hair blonde.

Making the plates

By Hockney's own account he made about 35 plates for the series and abandoned 19 of them. Most were etched at the Royal College of Art in London, but 'Disintegration' and 'Cast Aside' were etched at the Pratt Graphic Workshop in New York in May 1963. Each print combines etched line with aquatint for areas of tone: in 'The Start of the Spending Spree and the Door Opening for a Blonde', the red sun and clouds are aquatint and the figure and door are etched line. The portfolio was shown in London in 1963, alongside his first solo exhibition.

Before and after

Sales of the prints helped pay for Hockney's move to California in 1964, and his next portfolio for Editions Alecto, 'A Hollywood Collection' (1965), was made in Los Angeles. It swapped etching for lithography, and a personal narrative for an "instant art collection" of framed pictures.

At auction

In September 2024 Phillips London sold a complete set, numbered 41 of 50, framed and lacking its portfolio, for £254,000 including fees. Single plates have sold for a fraction of that. At Phillips London in September 2026, 'The Gospel Singing (Good People) Madison Square Garden' made £18,060 including fees, more than twice the £7,500 'The Drinking Scene' made at Phillips in January 2019.