George, Blanche, Celia, Albert And Percy, London, January

This signed photographic print is part of the much celebrated – and much imitated – Photo Collages collection of works by British artist David Hockney. Characteristic of Hockney’s lengthy engagement with photomontage in this period, this piece makes use of a methodology he initially named ‘drawing with a camera’ but which were later dubbed ‘joining’. Marking an extended visit to London from his home in California, here Hockney depicts a domestic scene featuring one of his most famous muses, British textile and fashion designer, Celia Birtwell. Accompanied by her children and their pet cat, Percy – immortalised alongside Celia and her then husband Ossie Clark in the internationally famous double portrait, Mr. And Mrs. Clark and Percy (1971) – this print is a standout example of Hockney’s nuanced, multi-perspectival approach to photography. Informing a public lecture delivered at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in the same year, Hockney’s sustained interest in the photograph plays into this print’s sense of self-awareness. Camera in hand, Hockney is to be found at the rear of the composition, reflected in a mirror, its frame a self-referential nod to a long-term questioning of representation and perspective figured by several recurring motifs, including the trompe l’œil frame in the A Hollywood Collection series, and theatre drop curtain in Hockney And The Stage