‘Dog Painting 17’: a David Hockney dog painting at auction for the first time — estimate up to £2.5 million

The estate sales of David Hockney, the pop-art giant who died in June at the age of 88, are delivering exactly what the art market had predicted: a series of surprises with rare masterpieces. The latest comes from Christie’s, which has announced that on October 14, at its London auction during Frieze Week, it will offer ‘Dog Painting 17’ (1995) — the portrait of Stanley, the British painter’s first dachshund.

It is the first time a work from Hockney’s legendary ‘Dogs’ series has come to auction. According to Hypebeast, the painting is estimated at £1.5–2.5 million ($2–3.3 million), and its rarity is extraordinary: only six works from the series are believed to be in private hands, while the others are held by the David Hockney Foundation.

‘Dog Painting 17’ portrays Stanley asleep, curled up in his dog bed, with a spontaneous brushstroke and a flick of the ear that animates the animal. As Artsy writes, Tessa Lord, Christie’s head of post-war and contemporary art, describes the work as ‘incredible spontaneity’ and ‘fluidity of the brushstroke’, adding: ‘I love that it has this kind of innocence, but it’s so much more than that. There’s a universality… it’s so much more than just a dog portrait.’

The emotional origin of the series is as strong as its value. Hockney began painting Stanley and Boodgie, his second dachshund, in a dark period: he had lost several friends to AIDS and was experiencing the death from pancreatic cancer of his close curator Henry Geldzahler. The artist himself said he wanted ‘with all his heart to paint something full of love’ — as The Guardian reports, the dogs gave him the light he was missing.

The seller of ‘Dog Painting 17′ bought the work immediately after the series’ exhibition at the LA Louver gallery, a show that Hockney said drew 7,000 people in four days — many of them with their own dogs. The public viewing of the work will be free at Christie’s galleries in London, from October 8 until the day of the auction.