Lot Essay
'The Fires of Furious Desire is from William Blake - I think Blake's title is 'The Flames of Furious Desire' - and it's a little self-portrait. When I turned a bit against using literary sources for painting for a while, I never gave them up in the prints much. It seemed to me much easier to respond to them in a graphic way; it probably still is.' (David Hockney by David Hockney, Thames & Hudson, London, 1976, p. 64)