Myself and my Heroes (Scottish Arts Council 4)

Details

David Hockney (b. 1937)
Myself and my Heroes (Scottish Arts Council 4)
etching and aquatint, 1961, on J. Whatman wove paper, signed and dated in pencil, from the edition of approximately fifty, published by the artist, with wide margins, in generally good condition, framed
Plate 259 x 495 mm., Sheet 530 x 695 mm.

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist.

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Myself and My Heroes was Hockney's first etching and shows the artist alongside Walt Whitman and Mahatma Gandhi. It was partly the influence of his fellow Royal College student, Kitaj, that encouraged the young Hockney to make art about the things that really interested him: literature, politics and people and their relationships. He admired Whitman's sympathies as a vernacular poet and Gandhi's pacifism and vegetarianism.

In 1961 Hockney was still unsure of his ability to depict figures; his solution was to use words: 'I have to make it clear, so I'll write Gandhi on this picture of Gandhi' he remarked in 1976, 'when you put a word on a [picture], it has a similar effect in a way to a figure; it's a little bit of human thing that you immediately read' (David Hockney, David Hockney, London, 1976).

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