David Hockney|Recent Etchings (1998)

These prints record Hockney's return to etching, made at home and drawn from life. In 1998 he was painting the Grand Canyon on a vast scale, in works such as 'A Bigger Grand Canyon'. The etchings turn from that landscape to the objects and people of his own house. Early in 1999 he proposed "a show of the etchings I have been obsessively doing recently", adding: "The work is I think more than just some etchings."

Technique and scale

The techniques are those of classical etching: soft-ground line, aquatint for tone and drypoint, with passages scraped and burnished back. Many of the prints are in black alone. Others add a second colour, such as the red of 'Red Wire Plant' and 'Chair With Book On Red Carpet'. The portraits 'Maurice', 'Brenda' and 'Soft Celia' are printed on sheets about 111 x 77 cm, and 'Van Gogh Chair (Black)' and 'Van Gogh Chair (White)' on sheets about 95 x 88 cm. 'Soft Celia' portrays the fabric designer Celia Birtwell, a friend Hockney had known since the 1960s.

Three exhibitions in 1999

The title comes from the shows that introduced the prints. Pace Prints showed 'Recent Etchings' in New York in May 1999 and published a catalogue of the same name. L.A. Louver followed in Venice, California, from late June, and Alan Cristea Gallery in London opened 'David Hockney: New Prints' in July. Pace Prints showed the group again in New York in 2018 and 2019, with impressions lent from the Hockney archives.

Before and after

Payne had already printed for Hockney in 1995: 'Stanley And Boodgie, Horizontal Dogs', one of the colour aquatints in 'Dogs and Sunflowers (Lococo Mulder, 1995)'. The 1998 plates moved largely away from colour, and from dogs and sunflowers to the whole household. The dogs had a set of their own from the same month, 'Dog Wall (Dog Etchings)', 15 black and white etchings that Pace Prints showed separately in New York at the end of 1999. From July 1999 Hockney turned to portraits drawn with the aid of a camera lucida, and Payne was among his sitters.

At auction

In September 2022 Phillips sold 'Van Gogh Chair (White)' for £100,800 in its David Hockney sale in London. Another impression of the same print had made £12,500 at Phillips in December 2013. Other prints from the group sold at around £10,000 in the 2010s: 'Chair With Book On Red Carpet' for £10,000 and an artist's proof of 'Black Wire Plant' for £10,625 at Phillips in February 2013, and an artist's proof of 'Soft Celia' for £10,687.50 at Bonhams in London in May 2019. All these figures include fees.