Gregory In The Pool (unique) © David Hockney 1978
Innovative and eternally productive, David Hockney continues to dazzle the art world and market as one of the most prolific Modern British Artists. Hockney is technologically innovative to this date, as witnessed in his recent - and triumphant - show at Lightroom London. Hockney's trailblazing oeuvre is reflected in his phenomenal print market performance, with his market size increasing by 121.82% since 2017.
Download our complete Modern British Prints Report here, to explore expert opinions on this prints and multiples market over the last five years.
Data-Led Art Investment
Our value index blends public auction data and private sales data from our collectors network. Our market value index uses artwork & artist data and a Repeat-Sales Regression (RSR) approach. Using the sale price of individual prints to estimate the fluctuations in the value of an average representative print over a unique period of time.
Our algorithm tracks over 48,500 auction histories & our own private sales data across 3,500 artworks spanning 30 years, including signed, unsigned, APs, PPs, TPs and sets of prints & editions.
We use several metrics when comparing artists:
- Market Size: the total value in sales in £GBP over a given period.
- Transaction Volume: the total number of sales over a given period
- Average Sales Price (ASP): the average price of a sale over a given period.
- CAGR: the Compounded Annual Growth Rate - a measurement used to smoothen the annual rate of growth over a given period.
- YoY: year over year - a direct comparison between the latest year and previous year.
David Hockey: Redefining Success and Impact in the Thriving Artist's Market
David Hockney (English b. 1937) is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His work speaks to broad audiences with high-profile sales in Europe, the United States, and Asia.
Hockney’s five-year art market performance is unmatched as the YoY appreciation in sales value is reflective of an established successful career making him one of the most investment worthy artists to add to collections. With Hockney’s print market currently producing six to seven figure sales in top quality works. Learn more about Hockney’s top ten most investable prints in our Market Watch Report.
David Hockney Print Yearly Turnover 2017 - Q1 2023 © MyArtBroker 2023Hockney Year on Year Print Performance
Hockney's print performance demonstrates a standard s-curve from 2017 to 2020 indicating typical periods of growth that are also impacted by spending power and other economic factors within the given period. However, the 2-year period of 2020 to 2022 shows tremendous growth, which is remarkable over a period riddled with economic concern as lockdown measures began to pivot and political turmoil began to surface. With a CAGR of 13% based on the ASP over the given five-year period, a Hockney print would likely have yielded a return of approximately 14,884 (£GBP).
Hockney's Top Print Results 2017-2022
As one of the most popular Modern British Artists, Hockney's top-selling prints frequently bring six to seven figures at public and private sale. With his unparalleled approach to various mediums, Hockney's prints are compelling to a wide-reaching audience of art collectors.
Here are Hockney's top 5 most investable prints according to our Modern British Prints Report:
Steps With Shadow
Steps With Shadow is Hockney’s top selling print last offered at Sotheby’s New York in 2019 and sold for over £1.9 million. The work is a unique depiction of Hockney’s most sought after imagery, his infamous pool works that imbue all of the qualities of sunny California. Unique to this work, is that it is actually a depiction of a pool at a friends house in New York, on a stop over to California, and is part of the series Paper Pools. One of Hockney’s earliest creations demonstrates his fascination with swimming pools and water, which would go on to define a period of Hockney’s greatest artistic achievements.
Home-Made Prints (complete set)
Hockney, an artist who continues to work with various mediums, experimented with photo-copying in the late 1980s, bringing together a series called Home-Made Prints. Home-Made Prints (complete set) is composed of thirteen works depicting everyday household items of still life, fruits and flowers on tables, as seen in Flowers Apple And Pear on Table and Still Life With Curtains And Two Red Chairs And Table. These works are unique in that the image, as a whole, was printed on multiple pieces of paper and then placed together to reproduce the image. Hockney’s continued quest for innovative art-making styles elevated the most standard printing process and mundane household objects. This complete series sold for £686,984 at Sotheby’s New York in May 2021.
Read our Ultimate Print Market Report to learn more about the investment potential in complete print sets.
Gregory In The Pool (unique)
Gregory In The Pool, also part of Hockney’s Paper Pools series, shows his lover Gregory Evans in the same New York pool depicted in Steps With Shadow. The saturated colours demonstrate how intricately the artistic materials have responded to the paper at an early stage in Hockney’s career. Depictions of Hockney’s lovers in pools would become some of his most celebrated works serving as an intimate portrait of his friends and lovers in their most natural element. Gregory In The Pool sold for £531,904 at Sotheby’s New York in May 2021.
The Arrival Of Spring In Woldgate East Yorkshire 4th May 2011
Cira 2009 Hockney shocked art world enthusiasts and collectors when he released works created with the then-latest piece of technology, the iPad. As these works first received mixed reviews, they are now some of Hockney’s most sought-after prints. The Arrival Of Spring in 2011 series culminated in the late 2000s as Hockney turned to the landscape for inspiration, capturing the changing evolutionary cycles of the seasons. This work sold for £504,000 at Phillips London in 2022.
Read more about Hockney’s latest experimentation with digital technology in our review of his most current immersive exhibition, A Spectacular Splash.
Afternoon Swimming
Afternoon Swimming sold for £363,613 at Christie’s New York and Hockney’s top five most expensive prints. The work demonstrated the popularity of Hockney’s swimming prints. It was also created at that same stopover in New York as the prints, as mentioned earlier, and companion Ken Tyler’s swimming pool in New York. It was rare that Hockney included more than one figure in his swimming prints. This work is filled with movement through the figures, and the water splashes, demonstrating a vigour and a lust for life.
Discover Hockney's other top print results in the Modern British Prints Report.
David Hockney Number Of Prints Sold Via Auction Quarterly 2017-2023 © MyArtBroker 2023Implicating Factors of Pace and Growth in Hockney’s Market
A critical driving factor of Hockney’s market is the number of works that surface for sale, especially within the print market. Our data shows detailed quarterly evidence of the increase in prints that have hit the auction market YoY. Even with a high transaction volume of works, Hockney’s ASP has remained a consistent five figures YoY with an average ASP over the given period amounting to +21,000 (£GBP).
Hockney’s body of work is vast and he has a number of timeless series that attract a various buyers. Among his most sought after works are his iPad drawings such as Flowers, The Arrival of Spring in 2011, and The Yosemite Suite. Hockney’s Dog prints are proving incredibly popular among the secondary market, a complete set of Dog Wall series just sold for +325,000 (£GBP) at Phillips (London) this year. Hockney’s pool prints have never lost their fan base, which is why MyArtBroker will be keeping a close watch on, perhaps, overshadowed works included in Hockney’s The Weather Series.
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