Hockney's Legacy Looms Large at Art Basel

A Bittersweet Presence

David Hockney's death on 11 June cast a long shadow over this year's Art Basel, lending an unmistakable poignancy to the many works by the artist scattered across the fair. As one of contemporary art's most commercially reliable names, Hockney has long been a fixture at the Swiss event, but this edition carries a different weight entirely.

No gallery is more intimately tied to Hockney's legacy than London's Annely Juda, which has represented him since the 1990s following the closure of his original dealer Kasmin. On its stand this year, the gallery presents Delphiniums on My Garden Table, July 2025, painted after the artist's birthday last year and depicting flowers gifted to him. David Juda, the gallery's founder who has known Hockney since the 1960s and sat for him on multiple occasions, is offering the canvas for $12m.

Works on Paper and Personal Portraits

Offer Waterman, another London gallery, has built its reputation around the secondary market for Hockney's works on paper from the 1960s and 1970s. Two drawings from that era grace its booth, each priced above £100,000. One portrays Mo McDermott, his former assistant; the other captures his close friend Tim Macdonald on Fire Island, New York — a locale famed for its queer community and legendary party scene. As Hockney's biographer Christopher Sykes once noted, the artist spent his summers there for "the tea dances, the drugs and the disco."

Beyond pastoral landscapes and domestic interiors, Hockney was never shy of more provocative subject matter. Tucked in the gallery's backroom hangs a drawing of a nude man in California, described by senior director Robin Cawdron-Stewart as depicting the figure "with his willy poking out."

A Market in Motion

Hockney's presence extends well beyond London dealers. Pace and Lelong both feature his work, while Chicago's Richard Gray Gallery has already sold two pieces, including an $8.5m painting of the artist's studio interior from 2014, acquired by a US collection. Valerie Carberry, the gallery's chief executive, recalls her final memory of Hockney at the opening of his retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris last year. "I will always remember the look of joy on his face that night as he opened his greatest career achievement," she says.

Given that Art Basel stands are planned weeks or months in advance — with shipping logistics remaining costly and complex — it is unlikely any gallery brought works specifically to commemorate Hockney's passing. Yet the market response has been swift. According to the platform MyArtBroker, collector demand for Hockney editions surged more than 1,200% within 48 hours of his death across its private sales network.

Charlotte Stewart, the platform's managing director, noted: "We always expect a response after an artist's passing, but the scale and speed of this one has been exceptional. What makes Hockney different is that he never became a historical figure while he was alive. He remained an active, evolving artist, still experimenting, still capable of surprising collectors. His market was booming when we lost him."