Influential British artist features in specialist print auction

British artist David Hockney’s major solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria until March 13 is expected to generate plenty of interest in Leonard Joel’s first specialist print and photography auction for 2017 because two of his works will feature in the sale.

Now 79, Hockney is regarded as one of the most influential living artists and the exhibition features more than 1200 works from the past decade of his career including paintings, digital drawings, photography and video works.

It includes more than 600 extraordinary and sometimes animated iPad digital drawings of still life compositions, self-portraits and large-scale landscapes.

Featured in the auction, which starts at 11.30am on Thursday February 16 at 333 Malvern Road South Yarra, are Hockney’s offset lithograph Sunbather 1970 and screen print poster Parade Metropolitan Opera 1981.

The auction features several notable works including American pop artist of the 1980s (and a contemporary of Andy Warhol, Howard Arkley and Brett Whiteley) Roy Lichtenstein’s Untitled colour lithograph.

Arkley also is represented in the sale along with leading Australian artists John Coburn, Charles Blackman, John Olsen and Arthur Boyd.

One of the major auction attractions is the rare and original late 1700s English printmaker and caricaturist James Gilray’s etching in sanguine Consequences of a Successful French Invasion.

Born in London, Gilray (1757-1815), who mainly published between 1792 and 1810, has been called the father of the political cartoon – with his works satirising King George III, prime ministers and generals.

Another highlight are four prints from the 1920s by German artist George Grosz (1893-1959).

Known particularly for his caricatural drawings and paintings of 1920s Berlin life, he was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic.

Bitterly anti-Nazi, in 1933 Grosz emigrated to the United States and five years later became a naturalised citizen.

His offset lithographs in the auction include Der Mensch Is Gut 1921, Ecce Homo 1921, Dammerung 1922 and Schonhet, Dich will ich Preison.

Other entries of interest to auction goers include Arthur Boyd’s collograph Cows and Pulpit Rock, John Coburn’s Desert Ceremony 1998, Charles Blackman’s Top Cat etching and John Olsen’s multi-plate etching Bondi 2003.

Intriguing are Lionel Lindsay’s (1874-1961) Goat and Rhododendron woodcut edition 17/100 and Spanish artist Joan Miro’s (1893-1983) Un Poeme Dans Chaque Livre etching.

Leonard Joel holds specialist print and photography auctions four times a year to attract buyers looking for colourful and affordable works. The next sale is scheduled for May.