Aug 13, 2020 - Sale 2544

Sale 2544 - Lot 153

Price Realized: $ 4,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500

DAVID HOCKNEY (1937 - ) ; C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933)


Fourteen Poems.
Translated by Nikos Stangos and Stephen Spender. 12 etchings by Hockney. 463x330 mm; 18 1/4x13 inches (sheets), full margins. Folio, publisher's plain purple cloth chemise and black cloth slipcase. London: Editions Alecto Ltd., (1966).

Number 387 of 500 copies of Edition B, signed by Hockney, from a total edition of 550.

Scottish Arts Council 47-59.

Additional Details

The first major series of etchings by Hockney since The Rake's Progress in 1963. "Hockney's largest painting of 1961 was inspired by the words of the Greek poet Cavafy. In 1966 the artist decided to illustrate a book of Cavafy's poems about homosexual love. He went to Beirut, which he felt was the modern equivalent of the writer's Alexandria, but few of his etchings refer to places or incidents in the poems. The translators and the artist together decided which print was to accompany each poem"--Castleman, 212;.