David Hockney
Blue-chipEgon research · Artist market profile
The market, in context.
Explore David Hockney’s auction history alongside the exhibitions, collections and gallery relationships behind the market.
Auction record
$90,312,500
Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
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Collections & exhibitions
Read holdings, exhibition history and their qualifications in context.
Read the institutional research →
Egon investment scores
Market position
Research updated
Auction record
In November 2018, his 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) sold for a record-breaking $90.3 million at Christie's, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist
Auction highlights
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| Work | Result | Venue and date |
|---|---|---|
| Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy | $44,300,000 · hammer | Christie's New York, November 2025 |
| L'Arbois, Sainte-Maxime | $17,190,000 · hammer | Sotheby's London, October 2024 |
| A Lawn Being Sprinkled | £22,500,000 · hammer | Christie's London, May 2024 |
1 further auction entries on record for David Hockney — inside Egon.
Pricing
- Long term growth
- Demand for David Hockney's work is growing rapidly and his price index has risen by 562% since the start of the millennium
- Market positioning
- Consistently blue-chip with eight-figure auction results
- 2024 market conditions
- Challenging market overall but Hockney maintains strong performance
Liquidity
- Score
- 10
- Auction presence
- All major houses (Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips, Bonhams)
- Geographic distribution
- Global - strong markets in UK, US, Asia
- Annual transaction volume
- High - hundreds of lots annually
Collector base
Institutional collectors
- Tate
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Centre Georges Pompidou
- J. Paul Getty Museum
- MoMA
- Art Institute of Chicago
Primary market
- Gallery pricing
- Contact Pace Gallery for current pricing
- Recent primary releases
- 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures series (2022) - iPad still lifes initially priced at $50,000 each, edition of 50
Auction history
Overall auction record
- Work
- Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)
- Sale date
- 2018-11-15
- Amount GBP
- £70,700,000
- Amount USD
- $90,312,500
Significance
In November 2018, his 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) sold for a record-breaking $90.3 million at Christie's, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist
- Year created
- 1972
- Auction house
- Christie's New York
Auction performance 2024 2025
Paintings
- Description
- In the past 12 months, his paintings have averaged 3,868,997 USD, while his works on paper have sold for an average of 132,749 USD
- Price range GBP
- 1000000-90000000
- Typical range GBP
- 1000000-5000000
- Recent average USD
- 3868997
Ipad drawings
Recent record
- Date
- October 2025
- Total sale
- £6.2 million ($8.3 million) for 17 works from 'The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate' series
Individual record
The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 – 19 February, 2011 (2011) sold for £762,000 ($1 million), soaring past its high estimate of £180,000 ($243,000) as well as the painter's print record of £504,000 ($693,069)
- Collector demand
- Strong - private market often outperforms auction
- Price range 2024
- £60,000-£110,000 for regular sized Yosemite series
Market performance
Hockney's iPad drawings, candidly capturing the beauty of Hockney's surroundings, maintained their unwavering popularity, consistently fetching prices exceeding £100,000 on the market
Prints and multiples
- Liquidity
- High - 727 lots offered in 2024
- Sell through rate
- 77% (2024)
- Typical range GBP
- 1000-500000
Recent turnover 2024
Note
The long-term trajectory reveals remarkable expansion, with turnover increasing more than fivefold from £1,291,594 in 2015 to £7,224,107 in 2024 (+459%). While 2024 shows a significant drop from the 2023 peak of nearly £14 million, current figures still vastly outperform pre-2018 levels
- Amount GBP
- £7,224,107
- Growth since 2015
- 459%
Market performance 2023
David Hockney's market has experienced significant growth over the past decade, with notable year-on-year increases in his print market. In 2023, despite challenging economic conditions for many blue chip artists, Hockney's print sales value surged by 72%
Market position
- Tier
- Blue-chip
Institutional presence
Research updated
Exhibitions
- Total exhibitions
- Over 400 solo exhibitions, 500+ group shows
Major retrospectives
David Hockney
- Year
- 2017-2018
- Venues
- Tate Britain (2017), Centre Pompidou (2017), Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017-2018)
- Significance
- Most comprehensive retrospective to date at that time
David Hockney 25
- Year
- 2025
- Dates
- April 9 - September 1, 2025
Scope
The exhibition, which is being held from 9 April to 1 September 2025, brings together more than 400 of his works (from 1955 to 2025) including paintings from international, institutional, and private collections, as well as works from the artist's own studio and Foundation
- Venue
- Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
- Significance
- Largest Hockney exhibition ever
- Year
- 1988
- Venue
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- Traveled to
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Gallery
- Year
- 1970
- Venue
- Whitechapel Gallery, London
- Significance
- First major retrospective
Biennials and major shows
- Year
- 2004
- Event
- Whitney Biennial
- Significance
- Cross-generational exhibition alongside Elizabeth Peyton
Upcoming exhibitions 2026
A Year in Normandy
- Dates
- March 12 - August 23, 2026
Scope
The exhibition is conceived in close collaboration with the artist and brings Hockney's celebrated ninety-metre-long frieze A Year in Normandie to London for the first time. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, which will be on display at the British Museum in 2026, this monumental work captures the changing seasons at the artist's former studio in Normandy
- Venue
- Serpentine North Gallery, London
Recent exhibitions 2024 2025
Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)
- Type
- Immersive digital exhibition
- Dates
- June 2024 - January 2026
- Venue
- Lightroom London / Aviva Studios Manchester
- Dates
- November 2024 - March 2025
- Scope
- Over 180 prints from private collection
- Venue
- Palm Springs Art Museum
- Dates
- November 2025 - February 2026
- Venue
- Annely Juda Fine Art, London
- Works
- New paintings and 'The Moon Room'
Publications
Catalogue raisonne status
- Scope
- Over 35,000 works documented
- Format
- Digital with ongoing updates
- Timeline
- 15-20 years to complete
- In progress
- Yes
- First volume
- Paintings - due 2026
Museum collections
Major museum holdings
Tate (UK)
- Acquisitions
- Long-term collection presence
- Significance
- Major holdings including 'A Bigger Splash' (1967)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Exhibitions
- Major retrospective 2017-2018
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
- Confirmed
- Yes
- Significance
- David Hockney has 177 works online
- Works online
- 177
Centre Georges Pompidou
- Confirmed
- Yes
- Exhibitions
- Major retrospective 2017
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Confirmed
- Yes
View 7 more records
Art Institute of Chicago
- Confirmed
- Yes
- Notable work
- American Collectors (Fred and Marcia Weisman), 1968
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
- Confirmed
- Yes
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
- Confirmed
- Yes
Philadelphia Museum of Art
- Confirmed
- Yes
Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Confirmed
- Yes
Victoria & Albert Museum
- Confirmed
- Yes
Cleveland Museum of Art
- Confirmed
- Yes
Awards and recognition
- Year
- 1962
- Award
- Royal College of Art Gold Medal
- Year
- 2017
- Award
- San Francisco Opera Medal
- Reason
- Theatre works and stage design
Career & Biography
Research updated
Career
- Age at death
- 88
Identity
Birth
- Date
- 1937-07-09
- Year
- 1937
- Location
- Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
Death
- Date
- 2026-06-11
- Year
- 2026
- Location
- London, England
- Birth year
- 1937
- Death year
- 2026
- Living status
- deceased
Current residences
- London (from July 2023 until his death in June 2026)
- Normandy, France (2019-2023)
- Hollywood Hills, California (earlier)
- Malibu, California (earlier)
Artistic context
Artistic influences
- Pablo Picasso
- Henri Matisse
- Chinese scroll paintings
Artistic Profile
Research updated
Influences
- Artist
- Pablo Picasso
- Influence
- Cubism, multiple perspectives
- Artist
- Henri Matisse
- Influence
- Color, line, compositional simplicity
- Artist
- Chinese scroll painters
- Influence
- Moving perspective, sequential viewing
- Influence
- Interest in optical devices and techniques
- Tradition
- Renaissance masters
Themes and subjects
- Swimming pools and water - exploration of surface, movement, and light
- California lifestyle and architecture
- Portraiture - especially of friends, lovers, and family
- Landscape - from California canyons to Yorkshire countryside to Normandy gardens
- Queer life and relationships
- Domestic interiors
- Nature and changing seasons
- Opera and theatrical design
Movements and periods
Influenced artists
- Elizabeth Peyton
- Numerous contemporary painters working with figuration and domestic subjects
- Digital artists working with tablets
Artistic innovations
- Challenged single-point perspective - incorporated multiple viewpoints in single works
- Pioneered serious artistic use of digital tablets
- Created photo-collages that introduce temporal element to photography
- Extensive opera and theatrical design work
- Experimented with video, fax art, photocopier prints
Techniques and mediums
- Medium
- Acrylic painting
- Characteristics
- Flat, bright colors; careful composition; multiple perspectives
- Medium
- Drawing
- Characteristics
- Continuous line drawing; colored pencil portraits; direct observation
- Medium
- Printmaking
Techniques
- Etching
- Lithography
- Aquatint
- Screen printing
- Significance
- Extensive print oeuvre spanning entire career
- Medium
- Photography
- Innovation
- Photo-collage 'joiners' introducing time and multiple perspectives
- Medium
- Digital (iPad/iPhone)
Characteristics
Hockney said that the iPad "Takes it to a new level - simply because it's eight times the size of an iPhone, as big as a reasonably sized sketchbook." Hockney himself has remarked that, not long ago, "the computer was too slow for a draughtsman. You had finished a line, and the computer was 15 seconds later ... but things have improved, and it now enables one to draw very freely and fast with colour". With a simple tweak of an option on his iPad, Hockney had every colour, medium, and texture at his fingertips
Critical Reception
Research updated
Critical reception
- Level
- Extensive
Consensus
As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries
Publications
- Type
- Monographs
- Examples
- David Hockney by David Hockney: My Early Years (1988 memoir)
- Type
- Exhibition catalogues
- Scope
- Major retrospective catalogues from Tate, Met, Pompidou
- Type
- Art historical texts
- Significance
- Regular inclusion in pop art and contemporary art surveys
- Legacy status
- Established as major figure in contemporary art history
- Academic recognition
- Widely studied in art history programs; subject of dissertations and scholarly articles
- Contemporary reviews
- Consistently positive with recognition of ongoing innovation
Recent critical discourse
- Topic
- Digital art and iPad drawings
- Reception
- Mixed - some critics praise innovation, others question materiality
- Market response
- Strong despite critical debate
- Note
- Critical division on immersive shows vs. strong public response
- Topic
- Immersive exhibitions
Reception
"There is not a single real work by [Hockney] here to catch your memory and hold on to your soul," Jonathan Jones—a critic always ready with a hot take—wrote in the Guardian. "Without real art, this entertainment goes the same way as all the other immersive exhibitions of art icons: into the weightless, passionless dustbin of forgetting."
Publications and media
Media presence
- Level
- Very high
- Social media
- Strong institutional presence; work widely shared
- News coverage
- Regular features in major art publications
- Public recognition
- One of most recognizable living artists
Major publications
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture
- Year
- 2012
- Publisher
- Royal Academy of Arts
David Hockney: A Bigger Book
- Year
- 2016
- Format
- Sumo Collectors Edition, signed, edition of 10,000
- Publisher
- Taschen
Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters
- Year
- 2001
- Significance
- Controversial theory about optical devices in Renaissance painting
Documentary coverage
Hockney's Pictures
- Publisher
- Thames & Hudson
- Type
- Channel 4 documentary
- Topic
- Secret Knowledge - camera obscura theory
- Type
- Exhibition films
- Scope
- Multiple documentaries on major retrospectives
Gallery & Representation
Research updated
Fair presence
- Recent activity
- Pace booth at Frieze New York regularly features Hockney
Regular presence
- Art Basel
- Frieze
- FIAC
Representation
Pace Gallery
- Tier
- Tier 1 (Mega-gallery)
Locations
- New York
- London
- Hong Kong
- Los Angeles
- Geneva
Significance
David Hockney has been represented by Pace since 2008. Significant exhibitions of his work at the gallery include Paintings 2006–2009 (2009); The Arrival of Spring (2014, 2015); Some New Painting (and Photography) (2014–15); and The Yosemite Suite (2016, 2017)
Recent exhibitions
- 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures (2021-2022)
- La Grand Cour (2019)
- Ma Normandie (2021)
- Relationship start
- 2008
Annely Juda Fine Art
- Tier
- Established London gallery
- Location
- London
- Relationship
- Long-standing (14th exhibition November 2025)
L.A. Louver
- Tier
- Major West Coast gallery
- Location
- Los Angeles
Galerie Lelong & Co.
- Tier
- Established European gallery
- Location
- Paris
GRAY (Richard Gray Gallery)
- Tier
- Major regional gallery
- Location
- Chicago
Geographic reach
Market availability
- Prints
- Regular availability of editions through multiple galleries
- Originals
- Limited availability - most major works in museums or long-term private collections
- Primary market
- New works available through Pace Gallery network
- Secondary market
- High availability through auction houses and specialized dealers
Sources & research notes
Egon’s artist research combines historical auction records, recent sales, institutional history, critical reception and gallery information. Researched auction records and auction highlights are identified separately.
Read prices with their work, sale date, currency and stated basis. Egon’s market assessments are distinct from reported auction results.
Reference: Egon, “David Hockney: Market Intelligence & Investment Profile.”
Research updates by section
These dates show when Egon’s research sections were updated. Source retrieval dates, where supplied above, refer to individual evidence notes.
Ranking updated . Research sections follow their own update dates.
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