Dog Etching No. 15
Dog Etching No. 15
Signed Print
David Hockney
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Medium: Etching
Edition size: 35
Year: 1998
Size: H 46cm x W 65cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Meaning & Analysis
While most of the prints from Hockney’s Dogs series show the artist’s pet dachshunds Stanley and Boodgie sleeping, No.15 is rare for showing its sitter awake. Here the dog looks back at the artist as it rests on a cushion, its legs neatly folded underneath its body, its fur a mass of black marks sweeping down from its back in soft expressive waves. As with Picasso and Warhol before him, Hockney was a big fan of dachshunds for their shape and personality. And while this is a tender portrayal of the relationship between the artist and his dog, it also represents the deeper love and grief Hockney experienced for the friends and lovers he lost to the AIDS crisis of the ’80s and ’90s. Speaking about portraying his dogs in his paintings in these years, Hockney said, “I wanted desperately to paint something loving. … I felt such a loss of love I wanted to deal with it in some way. I realized I was painting my best friends, Stanley and Boodgie. They sleep with me; I’m always with them here. They don’t go anywhere without me and only occasionally do I leave them. They’re like little people to me. The subject wasn’t dogs but my love of the little creatures.”
