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Lot 3AR
David Hockney R.A.(British, born 1937)Peter
25 June 2025, 13:30 BST
London, New Bond Street£3,000 - £5,000
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David Hockney R.A. (British, born 1937)
Peter (Scottish Arts Council 110; M.C.A. Tokyo 107)
Etching, 1969, on J. Green mould-made wove paper, signed, dated and numbered 9/75 in pencil, printed by Maurice Payne, published in 1970 by Petersburg Press, London, the full sheet, framed
Image 683 x 540mm (26 7/8 x 21 1/4in)
Sheet 927 x 711mm (36 1/2 x 28in)
Etching, 1969, on J. Green mould-made wove paper, signed, dated and numbered 9/75 in pencil, printed by Maurice Payne, published in 1970 by Petersburg Press, London, the full sheet, framed
Image 683 x 540mm (26 7/8 x 21 1/4in)
Sheet 927 x 711mm (36 1/2 x 28in)
Footnotes
Peter Schlesinger, one of David Hockney's most iconic muses and former romantic partner is portrayed in this 1969 etching with striking intimacy and vulnerability. The two met in Los Angeles in 1966, when Hockney was teaching at UCLA. Schlesinger, then a student, soon became both model and lover. Their relationship took them through Europe and eventually to London, where Schlesinger enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art. Though they separated after six years, Peter as muse remains in Hockney's oeuvre.
Schlesinger appears in many of Hockney's most well-known works, including Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), the 1972 painting, achieving the highest record to date of a work by the artist. That image originated from a chance pairing of photographs in Hockney's studio, ultimately evolving into a meditation on lost love and longing, created in the wake of their breakup.
By contrast, Peter offers a quieter, more unguarded depiction. Schlesinger stands nude, hands on hips, on a tiled grid in a bare interior. The composition is stripped of narrative, presented without irony or artifice. It is a frank, tender celebration of queer intimacy and male beauty, radical in its openness for its time.
Through works like Peter, Hockney invites the viewer into the emotional core of a deeply influential relationship, affirming Schlesinger's enduring presence not just as a muse, but as a catalyst for some of the artist's most poignant and innovative works.