{"id":111074,"date":"2025-10-29T22:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/111074\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:04:06","slug":"david-hockney-painting-of-christopher-isherwood-don-bachardy-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/111074\/","title":{"rendered":"David Hockney Painting of Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA rare piece of Hollywood art history is about to hit the auction block \u2014 and low estimates put its worth at $60 million. It\u2019s a painting by David Hockney, the British master who first landed on our shores in 1964 and turned swimming pools into high art. After a retrospective of his work closed last month at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, a private European collector who\u2019d lent the exhibition one of Hockney\u2019s most valuable works decided it was time to part with the double portrait<\/a> of author Christopher Isherwood and his partner, artist Don Bachardy, painted in 1968.<\/p>\n

\n\tIsherwood, whose books have been turned into several films (1972\u2019s Cabaret, 2009\u2019s A Single Man), was 30 years Bachardy\u2019s senior when they met in 1948. Hockney, who met the couple decades into their relationship, had been accustomed to hiding his sexuality in the U.K. But he was fascinated to observe Isherwood and Bachardy\u2019s \u201cordinary, domestic way of living as a couple,\u201d says Katharine Arnold, Christie\u2019s vice chairman 20th\/21st century art. \u201cHockney admired them. He looked to them as a model. You forget how radical that was for the time \u2014 to live as two men together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe painting took a year to finish. Isherwood, then 63, posed for Hockney in their Santa Monica home, but Bachardy, 33, was overseas at the time, and so Hockney painted him from a photograph. Hockney made no effort to conceal that in the painting. \u201cYou can see an anxiousness in Isherwood\u2019s expression, the distance,\u201d Arnold says. \u201cThat\u2019s part of the human condition \u2014 there are always little things left unsaid.\u201d Isherwood and Bachardy remained together until Isherwood\u2019s death in 1986. Bachardy, now 91, visited the painting while it was on display last week at Christie\u2019s Beverly Hills gallery.<\/p>\n

\n\tHockney, now 87 and living in Normandy, last had one of his works at auction in 2018. That one \u2014 Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) \u2014 sold at Christie\u2019s New York for $90 million, breaking the $58 million record set by Jeff Koons\u2019 Balloon Dog (Orange) for the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction. Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, as the piece is titled, will go on the block next month as a lead highlight of Christie\u2019s Fall Marquee Week<\/a> in New York (Nov 17-20). It remains to be seen if it can break Hockney\u2019s personal record.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the highlight of my career,\u201d says Arnold of the upcoming sale.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appeared in the Oct. 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rare piece of Hollywood art history is about to hit the auction block \u2014 and low estimates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[67399,307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-111074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-hollywood","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}