David Hockney was long regarded as Britain’s best-loved living artist – a colourist of rare confidence, a restless experimenter, and a figure who managed to sit comfortably in both the canon and popular culture. His death on June 11 prompted a wave of national mourning, but it also triggered something else: a sharp, immediate recalibration of his market.
With the artist’s publicist confirming that most of the privately kept works would ultimately pass to foundations and public institutions, scarcity became the dominant narrative. MyArtBroker reported a 1,200% surge in demand within 48 hours – a sudden, almost frantic sales grab as collectors tried to secure pieces before they disappeared from circulation.
So what happened to his prices at auction? An almost immediate answer came at Phillips’ Modern & Contemporary Art sale in London on 26 June, where Hockney’s 1991 oil The Only One with Waves carried an upper estimate of £2.5 million. Specialists watched closely: would the first major posthumous appearance deliver a premium? In the end, the painting sold for £2.41 million – solid, but not sensational. The result suggested that the market was holding its nerve.
On a local level, things were rather different. Henry Adams in Chichester offered 19 Hockney works in their late-July Fine Art & Antiques sale – mostly prints and works on paper. Estimates ranged from a few hundred pounds for the open-edition lithograph of one of the artist’s Dachshunds, Little Boodge, up to £8,000 for a still life made up of 24 fax prints entitled Breakfast with Stanley in Malibu.
Director Nick Hall (one of the experts on the BBC’s Bargain Hunt) was the auctioneer that day. He comments: ‘Our marketing team had publicised our Hockney collections widely and we were inundated with enquiries from collectors and dealers pre-sale, and we also noticed a large and increased footfall at our viewing days’.
The increase in interest in the late artist’s work affected the auction house’s calculations when it came to setting estimates. Hall continues: ‘We had pitched our estimates high because of the very recent passing of Hockney … There is inevitably a rise in interest and prices when a well-known artist passes, which can keep rising if limited numbers of works come to market, or can taper off if the market is inundated.’
A number of works exceeded their estimates, notably an iPad print of a log pile in a forest from Hockney’s book of Normandy landscapes From 220 for 2020, estimated at £200 and going for a whopping £2,500. Others failed to get much attention at all. ‘My personal observation,’ says Hall, ‘was that buyers seemed to dig deeper than before for works they particularly wanted but weren’t just spending scattergun on everything that came up.’
Gorringe’s also put a Hockney work under the hammer this summer, at their Art & Design post 1880 sale in July, a simple postcard-sized sketch in crayon, felt-tip pen and ink, created for a secret auction at Towner Eastbourne in 2012. ‘With an artist such as David Hockney, whose passing became national news, the resulting attention can have a substantial impact on the market,’ comments Managing Director & Head of Paintings John Holmes. ‘It can prompt owners to reassess works they have held for many years, with some recognising that increased public and collector interest may make this an opportune time to bring their works to market. The Hockney sketch was consigned shortly after his passing, and produced a strong result for such a modestly sized piece, achieving a hammer price of £10,000. However, the effect is not always uniform: the strongest results tend to be seen for the artist’s most sought-after periods.’
Words by Dexter Lee
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