David Hockney
Dessins et Gravures (Jacques de Bascher)
Item Description
Rare & Highly Collectible David Hockney Limited Edition Hand-Signed Exhibition Lithograph (1975)
Up for sale is an authentic, beautifully framed limited edition exhibition lithograph by renowned artist David Hockney. This piece was published by the Galerie Claude Bernard (located at 5, 7 et 9 rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris) on the occasion of Hockney's Dessins et Gravures (Drawings and Prints) exhibition, which ran from April 15 to May 24, 1975.
Artwork Details:
Subject: The portrait depicts the elegant Parisian dandy Jacques de Bascher de Beaumarchais, who was a notable fashion figure and companion to Karl Lagerfeld. He is captured resting in a green armchair while reading a book.
Signature & Edition: This is from the highly sought-after scarce premium edition on thick lithographic paper that was hand-signed in pencil by David Hockney and hand-numbered 129/450 in the lower right corner.
Condition:
Excellent vintage condition. The lithograph itself shows bold colors and crisp pencil work. The frame is structurally sound and ready to hang.
Framing: Newly Custom Framed in a contemporary mottled silver wood frame and triple matted.
Framed Size: 29" x 37"
Image Size: 17" x 24.5"
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, David Hockney attended art school in London before moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s. There, he painted his famous swimming pool paintings. In the 1970s, Hockney began working in photography, creating photo collages he called joiners. He continued to create and exhibit art until his passing on June 11 2026, and in 2011 he was voted the most influential British artist of the 20th century.
David Hockney's bright swimming pools, split-level homes and suburban Californian landscapes are a strange brew of calm and hyperactivity. Shadows appear to have been banished from his acrylic canvases of the 1960s, slick as magazine pages. Flat planes exist side-by-side in a patchwork, muddling our sense of distance. Hockney's unmistakable style incorporates a broad range of sources from Baroque to Cubism and, computer graphics. An iconoclast obsessed with the Old Masters, this British Pop artist breaks every rule deliberately, delighting in the deconstruction of proportion, linear perspective, and color theory. He shows that orthodoxies are meant to be shattered, and that opposites can coexist, a message of tolerance that transcends art and has profound implications in the political and social realm. Like other Pop artists, Hockney revived figurative painting in a style that referenced the visual language of advertising. What separates him from others in the Pop movement is his obsession with Cubism. In the spirit of the Cubists, Hockney combines several scenes to create a composite view, choosing tricky spaces, like split-level homes in California and the Grand Canyon, where depth perception is already a challenge. Hockney insists on personal subject matter - another thing that separates him from most other Pop artists. He depicts the domestic sphere - scenes from his own life and that of friends. Hockney was openly gay, and remained a staunch advocate for gay rights. In the context of a macho art scene that dismissed "pretty color" as effeminate, Hockney's bright greens, purples, pinks, and yellows are declarative statements in support of sexual freedom. In actively seeking to imitate photographic effects in his work, Hockney is a forerunner of the Photorealists. He is also a heretic among purists who feel that painting should rely only on the artist's direct observations from nature. Though not universally accepted, Hockney's research into the history of art has shown that Old Masters, from Vermeer to Canaletto, frequently used the camera obscura (an early form of camera) to enhance their optical effects. If the revered Old Masters could use cameras, he implies, why can't we?