£30m Hockneys smash record
TWO paintings by David Hockney have sold for £29.6million – smashing his auction record twice in one night.
His 1990 masterpiece Pacific Coast Highway And Santa Monica went for £21million at Sotheby’s in New York. It was bought by an Asian collector.
Earlier a 1978 work called Piscine de Medianoche (Paper Pool 30) was sold for £8.6 million, around £22,000 more than the record set by his Yorkshire landscape Woldgate Woods in 2016.
It was the first time either of the two paintings had been auctioned.
Capturing the view from the British artist’s home in the Hollywood Hills, Pacific Coast Highway And Santa Monica was described as a “true triumph of his singular vision” by David Galperin of Sotheby’s.
The piece is seen as an important work for its time, created when artists were turning away from paint towards Record...the 1978 pool painting, left, and view from his Wagner drive other mediums such as photography and installation art.
It depicts the Californian hills in bright, bold colours, and was described by Sotheby’s as “a highly personal and whimsical landscape brimming with joie de vivre”.
The painting recalls the route the Bradford-born artist would take from his house in the Hollywood Hills to his studio on Santa Monica Boulevard while listening to opera – which he dubbed his Wagner drive.
Hockney, 80, wrote in his 1993 autobiography: “Anyone who had been on my Wagner drive would recognise Pacific Coast Highway [and Santa Monica] – a multiple view of Santa Monica Bay and the mountains.”
Piscine de Medianoche, from 1978, was inspired by his friend Kenneth Tyler’s swimming pool in Westchester County, New York. It was bought by a private American collector. Sotheby’s said it was a “superb and particularly dramatic example” of the artist’s Paper Pools series.
Created over six weeks in 1972, they depict the effects of sunlight on a pool at different times of day.
The auction house said demand for Hockney’s work was at an “all-time high”, with four of his five highest prices set in the past 18 months.