Viareggio

Details

David Hockney (b. 1937)
Viareggio
coloured pencil on paper
signed with initials, dated and inscribed twice viareggio '62 DH. (lower right)
19 1/8 x 13½ in. (48.6 x 34.3 cm.)

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.

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Lot Essay

Marilyn Monroe died on August 5th 1962, and Hockney vividly recalls seeing the headlines of the daily papers prominently displayed on the newspaper vendor's stall on the promenade in Viareggio, the Italian seaside town where he was staying (Christopher Simon Sykes, Hockney: The Biography, Century, London, 2011, p. 113). This drawing, dated and inscribed 'viareggio '62', depicts a newspaper vendor, the name of the French daily France Soir emblazoned on his vest. His red heart has started to smoulder and whisps of smoke rise up above his head, a metaphor for the passionate grief aroused around the world by the news of the celebrity's untimely death.

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