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Lot Essay
Throughout his extraordinary career, David Hockney has demonstrated a deep admiration for aesthetic traditions of the past, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of modern art through his own unique and creative vision. Painted in 1988, the same year as the artist’s first, critically acclaimed U.S. retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chair with a Mind of Its Own is the perfect union between the artist’s continuous homage to the past and his uncanny eye towards space and perspective. Simultaneously embracing tradition and continuously innovating, Hockney remains celebrated for imbuing his works with his unique use of color, space and brushstroke.
Chair with a Mind of Its Own wonderfully demonstrates Hockney’s admiration for the masters of the art historical canon, ranging from Piero della Francesca to Vincent van Gogh, whilst retaining his own direct sensibility for form, color and space for which he is acclaimed. The importance of referring to art history, and Hockney’s deep knowledge of the necessity of looking back, in order to have the ability to move forward and innovate, is clarified by his constant referral to the Old Masters, in both subject matter, and their approach to depicting space. Hockney stated, "What I wanted to do, what I was struggling to do, was to make a very clear space, a space you felt clear in. That is what deeply attracts me to Piero, why he interests me much more than Caravaggio: this clarity in space that seems so real" (D. Hockney, quoted in exhibition catalogue, David Hockney. A Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988, p. 83).
Chair with a Mind of Its Own wonderfully demonstrates Hockney’s admiration for the masters of the art historical canon, ranging from Piero della Francesca to Vincent van Gogh, whilst retaining his own direct sensibility for form, color and space for which he is acclaimed. The importance of referring to art history, and Hockney’s deep knowledge of the necessity of looking back, in order to have the ability to move forward and innovate, is clarified by his constant referral to the Old Masters, in both subject matter, and their approach to depicting space. Hockney stated, "What I wanted to do, what I was struggling to do, was to make a very clear space, a space you felt clear in. That is what deeply attracts me to Piero, why he interests me much more than Caravaggio: this clarity in space that seems so real" (D. Hockney, quoted in exhibition catalogue, David Hockney. A Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988, p. 83).