1 of 6

David Hockney
David Hockney, Letter L, from Hockney's Alphabet, 1991
1991

Name: David Hockney, Letter L, from Hockney's Alphabet, 1991
Brand: David Hockney
Rating: 4.8 (74 reviews)

Price:$700

$1,196List Price

About the Item

This exquisite lithograph by David Hockney (born 1937), titled Letter L, from the folio Hockney's Alphabet, Drawings by David Hockney, originates from the 1991 edition published by Aids Crisis Trust, London, and printed by Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1991. The work exemplifies Hockney's mastery of line, color, and composition, uniting literary and visual creativity in a celebration of language, imagination, and art’s power to communicate across forms. Executed as a lithograph on Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper, this work measures 12.75 x 9.75 inches. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued. The edition demonstrates the exceptional craftsmanship of Faber and Faber Ltd. and the collaborative vision of Hockney and the Aids Crisis Trust. Artwork Details: Artist: David Hockney (born 1937) Title: Letter L, from the folio Hockney's Alphabet, Drawings by David Hockney Medium: Lithograph on Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper Dimensions: 12.75 x 9.75 inches (32.39 x 24.77 cm) Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered as issued Date: 1991 Publisher: Aids Crisis Trust, London Printer: Faber and Faber Ltd., London Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the folio Hockney's Alphabet, Drawings by David Hockney, published by Aids Crisis Trust, London, and printed by Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1991 Notes: Excerpted from the folio, This edition of Hockney's Alphabet comprises CCC examples printed on Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper, specially bound in quarter vellum with handmade Fabriano Roma paper sides, signed by David Hockney, Stephen Spender and contributors. CCL numbered examples are for sale. A further XXVI examples, lettered A-Z are for the writers. In addition there are XXIV examples, numbered I-XXIV for William A. McCarty-Cooper, the artist and the editor. About the Publication: Hockney's Alphabet (1991) is among the most significant artist and literary collaborations of the late 20th century. Conceived to benefit the Aids Crisis Trust, this extraordinary volume brought together one of Britain’s greatest living artists, David Hockney, with an illustrious group of contemporary writers, poets, and thinkers. Each letter of the alphabet inspired an original image by Hockney paired with a text by a distinguished author, including Stephen Spender, Iris Murdoch, Seamus Heaney, William Boyd, Doris Lessing, and Gore Vidal, among others. The project fused visual art and literature into a single creative act—an affirmation of imagination, compassion, and solidarity during the height of the AIDS crisis. Published in London by Faber and Faber Ltd. for the Aids Crisis Trust, the edition was exquisitely printed on Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper and bound in quarter vellum with handmade Fabriano Roma paper sides. A triumph of both artistry and philanthropy, Hockney's Alphabet remains one of the most eloquent artistic statements of empathy and collaboration in modern publishing history. About the Artist: David Hockney (born 1937) is one of the most celebrated and influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, whose visionary use of color, perspective, and technology has transformed the way we see and experience art. Over a career spanning more than six decades, Hockney has continually redefined the boundaries of painting, drawing, photography, and digital art, fusing classical technique with radical innovation. Trained at the Bradford School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, he rose to prominence in the early 1960s as a leading figure of the British Pop Art movement, creating witty, emotionally resonant, and visually daring works that explored modern identity, sexuality, and perception. Deeply influenced by Pablo Picasso’s fearless inventiveness and the avant-garde breakthroughs of Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, Hockney developed a distinctive style that merged the spirit of modernism with his own lyrical sensibility. His relocation to Los Angeles in 1964 marked a pivotal moment, inspiring his iconic pool paintings—most notably A Bigger Splash (1967) and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972)—which captured the luminosity, geometry, and emotional depth of contemporary life with unparalleled clarity. A relentless innovator, Hockney has explored visual perception through his photographic “joiners,” iPad drawings, and multi-screen video installations, always pushing the limits of how art can depict time, space, and experience. Like Picasso and Duchamp, he remains a restless experimenter; like Matisse and Giacometti, he approaches the human figure and landscape with empathy, discipline, and delight. His influence extends to generations of artists including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jonas Wood, and Alex Katz, as well as digital creators who continue his exploration of the intersection between art and technology. Represented in major institutions such as the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Art Institute of Chicago, Hockney stands as a global cultural icon whose work bridges the poetic and the technological, the intimate and the universal. The highest auction record for David Hockney was achieved with Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which sold for 90,312,500 USD at Christie’s, New York, on November 15, 2018—at the time setting the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold by a living artist, cementing Hockney’s legacy as one of the defining creative forces of modern and contemporary art. David Hockney Letter L Hockneys Alphabet Faber and Faber Aids Crisis Trust Hockney lithograph Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper.

Creator:
David Hockney (1937, British)
Creation Year:
1991
Dimensions:
Height: 12.75 in (32.39 cm)Width: 9.75 in (24.77 cm)
Medium:
Lithograph
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
1990-1999
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Southampton, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1465216212702

Shop All David Hockney

David Hockney

The art of David Hockney is always engaging in its pleasant ambiguities: his prints, drawings and paintings are warm but somehow aloof; filled with light yet often dark and brooding in subject; simple, frank and mundane, but also ethereal and complex. The artist’s stature in the contemporary art world is such that, in a 2011 survey of one thousand British painters and sculptors, he was named the most influential British artist of all time.

Hockney grew up in Bradford, in the northern English county of Yorkshire, studying at the Bradford School of Art from 1953 to ’57, and at the Royal College of Art in London from 1959 to 1962. Though he was educated in art at a time when abstraction dominated the field, Hockney stuck resolutely to figurative painting and drawing.

Hockney's early paintings suggest a search for a style, veering from Expressionism to a grotesquerie suggestive of James Ensor. But Hockney found himself almost the moment he arrived in Los Angeles, in 1963. The move from the gray and rainy Britain to a world of bright sunshine and sparkling water brought Hockney a sense of freedom and an artistic epiphany. He would spend most of the next five years in L.A., painting luminous pictures, such as A Bigger Splash (1967), of things that made him happy: swimming pools, manicured lawns, palm trees, stucco buildings and luxuries like shower stalls. Hockney also painted people, almost always his friends. His California portraits such as Beverly Hills Housewife (1966) are considered to be his finest work. They are at once grandly scaled, intimate and poetic.