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Lot Essay
Completed in March 2001, this self-portrait emerged at a time when David Hockney was fascinated by Renaissance and early modern portraiture, and the pose and direct gaze of the sitter is reminiscent of Jan van Eyck's Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) (National Gallery, London). Hockney made another drawing in charcoal titled Self-Portrait, March 2 2001 (Centre Pompidou, Paris): clearly made simultaneously with the present work and echoing the exact same pose, details such as the absence of his glasses and the combed hair distinguish it from the present drawing, demonstrating his process of refining and modifying his subject.
Hockney returned to Yorkshire from California in 1997 in order to look after his mother Laura, who died two years later. She was just one of many loved ones who Hockney had lost before the turn of the century. These circumstances might explain the trepidation in Hockney’s face: the pensiveness of an artist questioning his own methodology through the examination of older techniques and styles, as well as a broader meditation on loss and mortality.
Hockney returned to Yorkshire from California in 1997 in order to look after his mother Laura, who died two years later. She was just one of many loved ones who Hockney had lost before the turn of the century. These circumstances might explain the trepidation in Hockney’s face: the pensiveness of an artist questioning his own methodology through the examination of older techniques and styles, as well as a broader meditation on loss and mortality.