Jungle Boy
Jungle Boy
Signed Print
David Hockney
£11,000-£17,000
$22,000-$35,000 Value Indicator
$20,000-$30,000 Value Indicator
¥100,000-¥160,000 Value Indicator
€13,500-€21,000 Value Indicator
$110,000-$170,000 Value Indicator
¥2,140,000-¥3,300,000 Value Indicator
$14,000-$22,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Intaglio
Edition size: 50
Year: 1964
Size: H 47cm x W 57cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2023 | Sotheby's Online | United Kingdom | |||
| May 2023 | Dorotheum, Vienna | Austria | |||
| October 2022 | Freeman's Online | United States | |||
| December 2021 | Ketterer Kunst Hamburg | Germany | |||
| October 2014 | Phillips New York | United States | |||
| March 2013 | Christie's London | United Kingdom | |||
| February 2012 | Christie's London | United Kingdom |
Meaning & Analysis
Jungle Boy is a signed print by much-loved and internationally respected British artist, David Hockney. Issued in an edition of 50 in 1964, it depicts a nude figure in a cartoon-like confrontation with a snake.
This signed print by British artist David Hockney is a stand-out example of the artist’s early approach to printmaking and etching. Like other etchings such as Edward Lear or Gretchen And The Snurl, Jungle Boy is fantastical in nature. The print makes it unclear which of its elements are captured from life, forcing viewers to question whether it is in fact merely a figment of Hockney’s vivid, almost surrealist imagination. Produced in 1964, two years after Hockney’s graduation from London’s Royal College of Art, the print is a direct reflection of the artist’s move from cold, grey and expensive post-war London to the sunnier climes of an eminently relaxed California. Hockney incorporates a splash of vivid coloured ink into his depiction of an exotic palm tree, placed to the right of the composition; in conjunction with the palm tree, a marker of the faraway and the foreign, a large snake evokes a sense of wilderness and the jungle. The nude man with which the snake is engaged in confrontation is also an expression of California; whilst in London Hockney was unable to explore his homosexuality in any overt fashion through his art, relying on coded and euphemistic visual languages in order to do so. Upon moving to California, Hockney was confronted with a thriving and open gay scene which xenabled him to engage with the male nude in an uncompromising fashion.
