David Hockney's famous 1972 pool scene, that took 18 hrs a day for two weeks, may become world's most expensive artwork by living artist

By Shannon Tellis

Come November, David Hockney’s ‘Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)’ is expected to become the most expensive work by a living artist. Before the hammer drops, here’s a look at the artwork that is set to make history

Serendipity calling

David Hockney’s most recognised pool painting began as a happy accident. In 1971, the artist happened to spot on his studio floor two photographs whose styles juxtaposed nicely. “One was of a figure swimming underwater and therefore quite distorted… the other was a boy gazing at something on the ground. The idea of painting two figures in different styles appealed so much that I began immediately,” Hockney had said.

In the nick of time

After months of reworking, Hockney abandoned the project only to pick it up again in a frenzied bout of painting, four weeks before he was scheduled to exhibit at the André Emmerich Gallery in New York in 1972. According to reports, Hockney worked from photographs of his former lover and muse Peter Schlesinger at Kensington Gardens and pool shots he had staged at a villa in Saint-Tropez.

Painting 18 hours a day for two weeks, the artwork was finished the night before it was to be shipped to New York. “I must admit I loved working on that picture, working with such intensity; it was marvellous doing it, really thrilling,” he said.

The man behind the price
The only work to combine the two motifs that Hockney is best known for — the double portrait and the pool — the 1972 pool scene is reportedly owned by Bahamas-based billionaire Joe Lewis. According to a Bloomberg report, Lewis recently approached Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips to sell the painting and was seeking at least $80 million for the work.

Pushing aside the competition
Even if Hockney’s painting doesn’t meet the asking price (which is almost three times the price of his most expensive painting — ‘Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica’ sold for $28.5 million in May 2018), it could still break the record for the most expensive living artist at auction. The current title is held by Jeff Koons’s stainless steel ‘Balloon Dog’, which sold for $58 million in 2013, and closely followed by Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes ‘Bild’ (1988), which was sold for $46 million in 2015.