The first volume of a catalogue raisonné dedicated to the work of one of the UK’s most influential artists, David Hockney, will be released online in 2026. The debut volume will be dedicated to the artist’s paintings; more than 35,000 works in total will be documented. “This is approximately a 15-to-20-year project; there will be a call for works in due course,” says a project statement.
The catalogue will be overseen by an editorial and supervisory team comprised of Hockney himself, his studio assistants and trustees of the David Hockney Foundation (Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, reportedly Hockney’s partner, and Jonathan Wilkinson). Staff from David Hockney Inc., as well as researchers, scholars and authors familiar with the artist’s work, will also assist with research and the selection of works. The catalogue will also feature accompanying essays by artists and writers placing individual pieces in context.
The David Hockney Foundation was established in 2008 and according to an online description, owns more than 8,000 works by the artist (according to documents posted at Companies House UK, its gross income in 2021 came to £11.9m). David Hockney Inc is the artist’s US-based company “supporting his personal artistic endeavours and caretaking the collections and archives of the artist and his foundation,” the statement says.
The catalogue will not only be a useful resource for scholars and other artists but also aid collectors and dealers who closely follow Hockney’s market. In 2018, the work Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972), fetched $90.3m (with fees) at Christie’s New York, setting an auction record for Hockney, making the British painter the most expensive living artist to date.
Shannan Kelly, the director of David Hockney Inc., said in a statement: "We have worked very hard over the last few years in expanding and upgrading our inventory and archival databases, adding staff and resources to enhance the preservation and management of physical as well as digital collections of work by David Hockney and all materials associated with his life and career.”
