The World's Largest Modern & Contemporary Prints & Editions Platform
The Drinking Scene - Signed Print by David Hockney 1961 - MyArtBroker

The Drinking Scene
Signed Print

David Hockney

Price data unavailable

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: Etching

Edition size: 50

Year: 1961

Size: H 30cm x W 40cm

Signed: Yes

Format: Signed Print

TradingFloor

1 want this
Find out how Buying or Selling works.
Track this artwork in realtime

Watch artwork, manage valuations, track your portfolio and return against your collection

Track auction value trend

The value of David Hockney's The Drinking Scene (signed) is estimated to be worth between £14,500 and £22,000. This etching print, created in 1961, is a rare artwork with an auction history of two sales since its entry to the market in September 2013. There have been no sales within the last 12 months, and the average annual growth rate of this work is not available. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 50.

Unlock up-to-the-minute market data on David Hockney's The Drinking Scene, login or create a free account today

Auction Results

Auction DateAuction HouseLocation
Hammer Price
Return to Seller
Buyer Paid
January 2019Phillips London United Kingdom
September 2013Sotheby's Online United Kingdom

Meaning & Analysis

Hockney began work on A Rake's Progress portfolio in 1961 while he was still a student, taking inspiration from Hogarth’s 1735 work of the same name. While Hogarth’s prints are filled with details and drama, however, Hockney presents a modern and understated – although just as powerful – tale, focusing on his personal experience of loneliness and alienation in a foreign city.

The Drinking Scene shows two figures standing at a bar, their backs turned to the viewer. One has his arm around the other and they appear deep in conversation, and perhaps already drunk. To the right of the bar scene two figures are shown facing us, perhaps the same ones, their bodies cropped to focus on their faces, almost pressed together in a conspiratorial way. The only touch of colour is the lettering above their heads that reads ‘bar’ with an arrow pointing to the left. The bar itself offers a wonderful still life of bottles on shelves, framed by what appears to be a kind of fringe of the type found above a stage. Here we see Hockney’s fascination with theatre and trompe l’oeil manifest itself, as in the later print Figure By A Curtain and his later work on stage sets and costumes, including an opera version of A Rake’s Progress for Glyndebourne in 1975.

More from A Rake’s Progress