From 9 April – 31 August 2025, the Fondation Louis Vuitton is staging David Hockney 25, an all building takeover of more than 400 works in paint, print, photography, video and digital media. Meanwhile, Perspective Should Be Reversed at Palm Springs Art Museum (23 Nov 2024 – 31 Mar 2025) offers the largest survey of his prints ever mounted. Together these shows confirm a truth seasoned collectors already know: Hockney’s greatness lies not in one signature technique but in his restless leap from one medium to the next. Understanding that journey can help you spot undervalued works, judge condition intelligently and anticipate the next surge in demand.
Paint on Canvas; Oil, Acrylic & Watercolour.
Hockney’s early Royal College of Art canvases were thick‑painted oils steeped in British humour, but it was fast‑drying acrylic that let him capture the hard‑edged sunlight of California in icons like A Bigger Splash (1967). He still returns to oil for large Yorkshire landscapes and uses watercolour for quick plein‑air studies. Paintings remain the market apex, yet their colour decisions and compositional experiments directly inform the limited‑edition prints that many collectors can actually afford.
Traditional Printmaking.
Etching, Lithography, Screenprint & “Home‑Made” PrintsPrints run like a spine through every decade of Hockney’s output. He mastered etching for A Rake’s Progress (1961–63), embraced lithography in Los Angeles with The Hollywood Collection (1965) and layered colour separations on a humble photocopier for his 1986 “home‑made prints”. Edition sizes are small by today’s standards; often 50–100 for lithographs and 10–35 for the Xerox works—making supply tight and auction interest steady.
Photography & the Joiners.
In the early 1980s Hockney dismantled the “single‑point perspective” of a lone camera by arranging dozens of Polaroids or 35 mm prints into Cubist grids joiners that let the viewer’s eye roam in multiple directions. Works like Pearblossom Highway #2 (1986) anticipate the layered space of his later digital prints. Vintage joiners fetch strong prices, but even modern reprints or catalogue posters can add historical depth to a print collection.
Fax, Xerox & Other Early Digital Experiments.
When museums balked at shipping large paintings for the 1989 São Paulo Bienal, Hockney simply faxed 33 drawings from Los Angeles, turning office tech into instant exhibition material. Those fax pages and Xerox colour copies are now traded as scarce ephemera, proof that his embrace of the new is anything but recent.
iPhone & iPad Drawings
Hockney began sketching dawn views on an iPhone in 2009 and, by 2011, was producing full‑scale iPad landscapes. The resulting series, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate (2011), was printed in vivid inkjet editions that legitimised digital printmaking. Arrival of Spring sheets remain auction darlings: a large four‑panel versions and smaller single sheet editions continue to climb, offering collectors liquidity and a direct line to Hockney’s most innovative period.
Multi Camera Video & Opera Sets.
The same Yorkshire lanes reappeared in The Four Seasons (2010–11), a 360° video constructed from nine synchronised cameras. On the live stage, Hockney has designed exuberant sets for The Magic Flute, Turandot and more, translating his colour sense into three‑dimensional space. Maquettes and design lithographs occasionally surface at auction at entry‑level prices.
Why Medium Matters for Value in 2025.
For collectors, medium is more than a technical footnote it is a value signal. Paintings sit at the top of the pyramid, but their market movement often trickles down to prints and photographs within months. Phillips’ dedicated Hockney sale in September 2024 realised £1.78 million, led by high‑end digital prints, while the broader Editions auctions added £3.6 million in Hockney revenue. Historically, prints offer the most liquidity, photographs the most volatility, and digital works the sharpest growth curves.
David Hockney has spent seven decades proving that innovation and craft are not mutually exclusive. Whether he is dabbing acrylic onto a Californian pool or dragging a digital brush across an iPad, each medium informs the next and each offers collectors a distinct balance of rarity, price and visual impact. If this overview has sparked ideas, explore our live inventory or visit the gallery to see how these mediums look in the frame. We’re here to help you choose the Hockney that best fits your wall, your budget and your own framed thoughts.