Author: Cowley Abbott

The celebrated Pop artist David Hockney took the art world by storm in the 1960s and 1970s with his sun-drenched series of poolside modernist homes, capturing his newfound Californian lifestyle. He continues to stay relevant today by adapting to new technological advancements, from Polaroid cameras to iPads.

His works regularly break auction records, most recently with poolside drawings selling for over 2 million USD at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, respectively. During our Spring Live Auction of Important Canadian and International Art, his ink drawing Nehemiah Checking the Walls of Jerusalem not only drew an intense bidding war, but it sold for $102,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $12,000 to $16,000.

In our upcoming online auction of Prints & Multiples, opening on August 29th, we will be offering two prints by the British artist. Initially published in 1970, Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm with Illustrations by David Hockney revisits the Grimm tales through whimsical black-and-white etchings, including The Little Hare, Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin.

“They’re fascinating, the little stories, told in a very very simple, direct, straightforward language and style; it was this simplicity that attracted me. They cover quite a strange range of experience, from the magical to the moral,” described Hockney in his 1976 autobiography.

His suite of thirty-nine etchings took nearly a year to complete, using a cross-hatching method to create variations in tone and texture. Hockney wanted to create a spontaneous effect by drawing the forms quickly to work out the style and the references to the period.

For Rapunzel, Hockney draws on art historical sources, with the face made deliberately ugly and the pose based on Hieronymus Bosch’s The Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1475), while the copse of trees in the background is reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation (ca. 1472). He also drew inspiration from Vittore Carpaccio and Paolo Uccello for the costumes.

Hockney took liberties with the source material, however, referring to the old lady not as a witch but as an enchantress since “an enchantress is less wicked, really, and after all this woman in the story doesn’t keep the child; she’s quite kind about it.”

This second print comes from The Boy Who Left Home to Learn Fear, which Hockney believed to be “such a strange Gothic story; I’d no idea how to illustrate it. I only knew I wanted to do it.” Here he depicted two corpses on fire with moon-like faces. The figures stare blankly forward as their hazy bodies become engulfed by flames.

According to the German folktale, a young, naive boy slept beneath the gallows one night, where there were still seven hanged men, because he wanted to learn how to shudder. He built a fire to stay warm, and upon seeing the bodies sway in the wind, he realized they must be cold. He decided to cut the bodies down and placed them by the flames, but they did not stir when their clothing caught on fire. Annoyed at their reckless behaviour, the young, careless boy re-hung them on the gallows before travelling on.

Hockney’s series of etchings were ultimately proofed by Maurice Payne, printed by Piet Clement on Hodgkinson handmade paper and published by Petersburg Press in London and New York. A miniature book was published by Oxford University Press, selling over 150,000 copies.

With the fall 2023 auction season fast approaching, Cowley Abbott is seeking consignments of international art for our upcoming online and live sales.

In the past few decades, Japanese artists have taken the contemporary art world by storm, presenting bold and inventive works that embody Japan’s rich cultural history. They challenge Western traditions and push the boundaries of contemporary art, like Yayoi Kusama and Yoshitomo Nara, whose revolutionary works have attracted international acclaim and commercial success.

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Yayoi Kusama is one of the most successful living female artists, best known for her signature polka dots and mirrored infinity rooms. Her style relies on repetitive patterns and vibrant colours and is influenced by Conceptual Art, Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism. She left Japan for New York in 1957, and by 1962, she was exhibiting at the Green Gallery alongside well-established avant-garde artists such as Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol. 

In 1946, the pumpkin first appeared in Kusama’s work when she exhibited in a travelling show in Nagano and Matsumoto, Japan. From then on, she began incorporating pumpkins in her dot-motif paintings, drawings and prints. For instance, a giant black and yellow polka-dotted pumpkin has stood at the end of a pier on Naoshima Island since 1994. It was the first of many examples of public art that Kusama began to display in Japan, France, the United States and Korea.

Kusama explained in a 2015 interview: “I love pumpkins because of their humorous form, warm feeling, and a human-like quality and form. My desire to create works of pumpkins still continues. I have enthusiasm as if I were still a child.”

Another pioneering figure in contemporary art is Yoshitomo Nara, whose work is influenced by childhood memories, popular music and current events. Born in 1959 in Hirosaki, Nara became fascinated with Neo-Expressionism and punk rock while studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany. He first gained recognition in the 1990s during Japan’s Pop Art movement. By 2001, he had become associated with the avant-garde group of Japanese artists known as Superflat, who used bright colours, patterns and cartoon motifs to challenge Japan’s hyper-consumerist culture. The group also included Takashi Murakami and Chiho Aoshima. 

Nara is renowned for his works featuring young children appearing simultaneously innocent and enigmatic. His distinct style is introspective, exploring a wide range of feelings, from joy to loneliness to rebellion. Nara adopts a muted colour palette and minimalist approach to present simple subjects whose oversized features reveal complex emotions. 

His characters often brandish weapons, like knives or scissors, as shown in this lithograph. Nara once commented on this recurring motif, saying: “Look at them, they are so small, like toys. Do you think they could fight with those? I don’t think so. Rather, I kind of see the children among other, bigger, bad people all around them, who are holding bigger knives.”

Born in Osaka in 1974, MADSAKI is a Jersey-raised contemporary painter who graduated in 1996 from Parsons School of Design in New York before starting to exhibit at galleries in Tokyo, Seoul, Los Angeles and New York. He would eventually return to Japan, becoming one of the most influential Japanese artists after Takashi Murakami invited him to exhibit at Hidari Zingaro in 2016.

Being Japanese-American, MADSAKI straddles two cultural identities often at odds with each other. Despite being a member of the Western art world, he playfully criticizes the canon and believes there should be no distinction between high and low art. He draws inspiration for his acrylic and aerosol paintings from an eclectic mix of sources: Old Masters, popular advertisements and films. 

His instantly recognizable subject matter is full of childlike energy and emotions. “Specifically, I am interested in how experience enters memory, and once there, how it’s flattened into a two-dimensional image. Memory makes images feel simultaneously very close and very far,” described the artist in a 2021 interview with L’Officiel Saint Barth.

The June Online Auction will close on Tuesday, June 27, starting at 2 pm EDT.