“These two dear little creatures are my friends. They are intelligent, loving, comical and often bored. They watch me work; I notice the warm shapes they make together, their sadness and their delights. And, being Hollywood dogs, they somehow seem to know that a picture is being made.”
—David HockneyComprised of fifteen etchings, David Hockney’s Dog Wall is a large-scale homage to his two beloved dachshunds: Stanley and Little Boodgie. Depicted lounging in a variety of positions – sometimes together, sometimes individually – Dog Wall attests to the artist’s adoration of his pets while simultaneously exemplifying the brilliance of his draughtsmanship.
David Hockney, Dog Painting 12, 1995 “I realised I was painting my best friends. The subject wasn’t dogs but my love of the little creatures.”
—David HockneyHockney’s love for sausage dogs was sparked by Heinz, the cherished dachshund of his close friend Ian Falconer. Upon seeing how besotted Hockney was with Heinz, Falconer took the artist to pick out Stanley at the breeders, with Little Boodgie joining the Hockney household a few years later. Hockney credits his canine companions with helping him through a very difficult time in his life. Having lost many friends in the 1980s and early 1990s to AIDS, Hockney was particularly affected when revered art historian and close friend Henry Geldzahler succumbed to liver cancer in 1994. Stanley and Little Boodgie proved essential to helping Hockney through his grief and were first immortalised in 1995 in a series of paintings titled Dog Days. Hockney’s repeated meditations on his two dachshunds epitomise his devotion to the dogs, with Dog Wall serving as the most refined, multi-faceted representation of their individual personalities. Hockney’s depictions of Stanley and Little Boodgie are in good art historical company, as both Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol also immortalised their pet dachshunds – called Lump and Archie respectively – through their artworks
David Hockney with his Dachshund, 1992. Image: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo Realised in 1998, the Dog Wall portfolio was produced soon after Hockney’s close friend and master printer Maurice Payne moved into the artist’s Los Angeles home for a year. In Hockney’s Montcalm Avenue residence, Payne set up a fully-functioning etching studio. He began leaving prepared etching plates all around Hockney’s house, which the artist would then spontaneously use as he might a sketchbook. This sense of freedom is exhibited in every individual charming etching that comprises Dog Wall, with each print serving as a quick study of the dachshunds. Captured at speed - before the dogs darted off again – Hockney uses variations in line to depict the pair as rapidly yet realistically as possible. In some prints, delicately and sporadically placed lines conjure up the face of an animal at rest, with the negative space of the unmarked surface acting as an oasis of stillness. In other etchings, densely packed lines overlap into pulsating balls of energy, adding a vitality to the prints and conveying the lively personalities of Stanley and Little Boodgie, even in the brief moments of calm that Hockney sought to capture. Serving as a composite portrait of his two pets, Dog Wall is an exquisite study in mark making executed entirely in monochrome.
“They sleep with me; I’m always with them. They don’t go anywhere without me and only occasionally do I leave them. They’re like little people to me”
—David HockneyProvenance
Forchielli Glynn, Los Angeles
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 2000Literature
Alan Cristea Gallery, David Hockney Recent Etchings, exh. cat., London, 1 July - 14 August 1999, no. 15, pp. 36-37
Artist Biography
David Hockney
David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most well-known and celebrated artists of the
20th and 21st centuries. He works across many mediums, including painting, collage,
and more recently digitally, by creating print series on iPads. His works show semi-
abstract representations of domestic life, human relationships, floral, fauna, and the
changing of seasons.
Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal
Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many
other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90
million.
16
Dog Wall
1998
The complete set of 15 etchings, on Somerset paper, with full margins.
all I. various, largest 45.8 x 64.9 cm (18 x 25 1/2 in.)
all S. various, largest 56.7 x 75.7 cm (22 3/8 x 29 3/4 in.)
All signed, dated and numbered 17/35 in pencil (there were also 10 artist's proofs), published by Pace Editions, Inc., New York, all framed.
Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £317,500
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David Hockney
London Auction 19 September 2024
