David Hockney's Ninety Million Dollar Painting

[JohnGerman]

I'm probably in the minority..

90 Million? Bullshit!...over priced...inflated market...good publicist years ago..

Must have blown someone...

 

Well, good ol' Dave certainly has blown quite a few and that's a fact.

 

As for whether his work is worth 90 mil, the market has spoken. From a modern and contemporary art history perspective, it can be argued that he can be worth that much. Personally, I can think of quite a few painters that could or should be worth more, but art market is really fluid.

[+ nycman]

My favorite Hockney piece has always been a photographic collage, The Scrabble Game (1983).

 

I don't agree with the criticisms of shallow or cheery--both because I don't see his work that way and because I don't see those qualities as automatic negatives. To each his own!

I’ve always loved his photographic collages.

 

I spent many hours in the dark room in college imitating them.

 

Unfortunately, they haven’t aged well. Neither his nor mine.

[+ WilliamM]

Very nice to be aware a few important members of this forum knows Mr. Hockney.

Thanks for the emails and PMs.

 

To @Avalon: Hockney and his models are still alive.

Edited December 26, 2018 by WilliamM

[TUOT89]

All great paintings tell a story not just through the figures but the forms.

 

Look at the pool in the bottom corner. It is spilling over. It is failing to contain.

 

Look at the shape of the pool, what you see is a triangular section. The section of the sky you see is also triangular. The doubling also suggests a lack of closure.

 

The two triangles almost meet at a point, but they don't. A long rectangular plane comes between them.

 

There are at least 3 more triangles in the painting, some of them implicate the figures.