Thin Trading in the Hockney Market Makes $80m Hard to Predict

David Hockney, Sprungbrett mit Schatten (Paper Pool 14)

This look at David Hockney's market—based upon data from our friends at Pi-eX—is available to AMMpro subscribers. Monthly subscriptions begin with the first month free. Feel free to subscribe and cancel before you are billed.

Today's announcement that Christie's have decided to sell David Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) during the November sales cycle in New York means the auction house will have two major works by David Hockney in the sales cycle. The works come to market in the midst of an unprecedented explosion in Hockney sales. In 2018, the three top prices for Hockney's work were set at Sotheby's. Two of those prices, including the most valuable Hockney sold at auction were later works. One was an example of the paper pool series that made $11.7m, well over the $7m high estimate for the work.

Much of the attention during the sale will be on double portrait being sold by investor Joe Lewis who is looking for a price three times the top auction price for the artist. But the paper pool from Hunk & Moo Anderson's collection also has the potential to perform extraordinarily well. With so much potential value on the line, it seems smart to look at the history of the auction market for David Hockney's work … such as there is.