David Hockney O.M. C.H. R.A. (British, 1937-2026)
Two Red Peppers

signed with initials and dated 'DH 70' (lower right)
crayon and pencil

Unframed: 42 x 35.5 cm. (16 1/4 x 14 in.) Framed 53 x 43.5 cm. (20 7/8 x 17 1/4 in.)

With Kasmin Gallery, London
Private Collection, Belgium, 1976
Private Collection, U.K, thence by descent

Exhibited:
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, 22 Aug-22 Oct 1995, fig.39; this exhibition travelled to London, Royal Academy, 9 Nov 1995-28 Jan 1996; and Los Angeles, County Museum of Art, 15 Feb-28 Apr 1996.

Literature:
Nikos Stangos (ed.) David Hockney by David Hockney, Thames and Hudson, London, 1976, p.237, cat.no.328, illustrated
Ulrich Luckardt and Paul Mella, exhibition catalogue, David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, Hamburger Kusthalle, 1995, p.145, fig.39. illustrated

David Hockney O.M. C.H. R.A.'s Two Red Peppers, signed with initials and dated 'DH 70', stands as a brilliant testament to the artist’s unparalleled draughtsmanship and his enduring fascination with the quiet intimacy of everyday objects. Created during a period of immense critical and commercial success, punctuated by his major retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery earlier that same year, this work captures a moment of both personal expansion and intense artistic focus. As Hockney’s world broadened through extensive travel across Europe and the Americas, his commitment to drawing remained an unwavering anchor. Two Red Peppers is a masterclass in this daily devotion, elevating a fleeting moment of observation into a profound meditation on form, colour, and solitude.

The early 1970s marked a distinct transition for Hockney, characterised by a nomadic existence that deeply informed his artistic output. In the summer of 1970, he embarked on travels that included a stay at the Carennac chateau of his dealer, John Kasmin, a relationship directly reflected in the present work's provenance, which traces back to the Kasmin Gallery in London. Whether traversing the south of France, returning to the bright light of California, or resting in luxury hotels, Hockney was rarely without his sketchbook. Unlike the sprawling, vibrant canvases of his Los Angeles swimming pools, his drawings from this period, such as Grand Hotel Terrace, Vittel (1970) and View from the Miramar Hotel, Santa Monica (1970), sold by Chiswick Auctions for £403,200, offer a more intimate, immediate processing of his surroundings. He famously asserted that he painted what he liked, when he liked, and where he liked; his drawing practice was the pure, unfiltered realisation of that ethos. During this era, his sketchbooks functioned as an intimate visual diary, with his travels across France sparking highly celebrated portraits and still lifes that documented his closely-knit inner circle and his immediate reality.

Central to the triumph of Two Red Peppers is Hockney’s masterful use of crayon and pencil. At a time when coloured pencils were frequently dismissed by professional artists as a rudimentary medium more suited to children, Hockney championed their potential. Having refined his technique throughout the 1960s, by 1970 his command over the medium was absolute. In the present work, he exploits the crayon and pencil to achieve an extraordinary degree of nuance. The medium allowed him to render the undulating textures, the glossy reflections, and the vibrant, fleshy skin of the peppers with remarkable precision. This meticulous application of fine, delicate lines transforms a humble vegetable into an object of intense scrutiny and tactile desire. Crucially, Hockney’s drawings from the early 1970s were never mere preparatory sketches; they were conceived as independent, highly finished works of art in their own right, reflecting hours of committed looking. He frequently laboured over these pieces for two or three days, proving his belief that drawing is a fundamental aspect of his graphic approach.

Visually, the composition is striking in its elegant simplicity. The vegetables are isolated against the stark expanse of the paper, stripped of any distracting background or traditional domestic context. This deliberate isolation echoes the compositional strategies seen in similar still-life drawings from this era, such as Onions (1972), sold by Christie’s for £189,000 in 2023. By divorcing the subject from a busy setting, Hockney instils the composition with a sense of melancholic solitude, a recurring atmospheric motif in his work of the 1970s, frequently observed in his depictions of empty chairs and vacant hotel rooms. Yet, this solitude is not devoid of warmth; it is a playful, joyous celebration of the act of seeing. The peppers become an object lesson in formal beauty, their organic curves and brilliant red hues standing in quiet defiance of the empty space surrounding them.

The historical importance and aesthetic brilliance of Two Red Peppers are irrefutably cemented by its distinguished exhibition history and literature. The drawing was prominently featured in the definitive retrospective David Hockney: A Drawing Retrospective, which debuted at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1995 before travelling to the Royal Academy in London and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1996. The accompanying 1995 exhibition catalogue, authored by curators Ulrich Luckardt and Paul Mella, serves as a monumental examination of his skills as a draughtsman. Bringing together his most vital works on paper, the publication emphasises that drawing is not merely supplementary but sits at the very root of all Hockney's work across every medium. Furthermore, the artwork's illustration and inclusion in Nikos Stangos’s seminal 1976 publication, David Hockney by David Hockney, underscores its position within the core canon of the artist's autobiographical and visual narrative. This work presents an exceptional opportunity to acquire a deeply personal, technically flawless, and historically significant piece by one of the modern era's greatest draughtsmen.