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CHRISTIE’S LONDON
CHRISTIE’S UNVEILS DAVID HOCKNEY’S CALIFORNIA
AN OUTSTANDING MASTERPIECE UNSEEN IN PUBLIC
FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS
ONE OF THE FIRST POOL PAINTINGS BY HOCKNEY, THE WORK
HAS REMAINED IN THE SAME PRIVATE COLLECTION SINCE 1968A HIGHLIGHT OF THE
20TH / 21ST CENTURY: LONDON EVENING SALE
David Hockney, California (1965, Estimate on request: in the region of £16,000,000)
© CHRISTIE'S IMAGES LTD. 2024
London – Christie’s will offer David Hockney’s masterpiece, California (1965, Estimate on request: in the region of £16,000,000) as a highlight of the 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale on 7 March. Held in the same European private collection since 1968, the painting stands among Hockney’s first great swimming pool paintings and has been unseen in public for more than 40 years.
California was acquired by the present owner in 1968. The painting was unveiled in London on 25 January ahead of a touring exhibition schedule that includes Paris from 3 to 8 February and New York from 15 to 19 February. California will then be on view in London at Christie’s global headquarters on King Street from 1 to 7 March. California is the largest and finest in the extraordinary group of early pool paintings created in London after Hockney’s first visit to Los Angeles in 1964. The art historians Paul Melia and Ulrich Luckhardt have noted that ‘Hockney considers it to be one of his most important pool paintings’. The paintings that followed have come to be synonymous with his oeuvre, combining dazzling technical virtuosity with strains of fantasy, desire and longing.
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