David Hockney The Drinking Scene (M.C.A.T 18) For Sale

The Drinking Scene is a signed and numbered etching, part of an edition of 50, and plate 4, from David Hockney’s semi-autobiographical series, A Rake’s Progress. A modern rendering of William Hogarth’s1753 engraving series based on an 18^th century regal man who descended from inherited wealth to squalor: Hockney’s version of the ‘Rake’ is a young gay artist experiencing New York City for the first time in the summer of 1961, set to the themes of isolation, disconnection and ultimately despair.

The Drinking Scene artwork depicts part of the ‘Rake’s’ journey where he experienced moments of joy in New York city, liberated from a post war Britain still criminalising homosexuality. And where he was struck that ‘the bars never closed.’ The scene is easy to decipher: two male friends at a bar conversing with joy, perhaps already drunk. The men are pictured with their backs to us under the bar orning: to the right-hand side of the image, facing the viewer, are the graphic outlines of two more male figures. However, conversely, we can only see their faces, which are pressed together so hard, they appear conjoined or at least conspiratorial.

The human figures are punctuated by the iconography of the image backdrop: a bold red BAR sign and arrow add colour to the composition but differ from the abstract red ink clouds of earlier prints, like The Arrival and The Gospel Singing (Good People) Madison Square Gardens. Also, unexpectedly, the orning of the bar is created in a curtain fringing that resembles a theatre set, of course, Hockney later went on to work in set design, including for a 1975 Glyndebourne version of Igor Stravinsky’s A Rake’s Progress opera.

The narrative behind The Drinking Scene is not entirely clear, but in contrasting these sets of two figures (are they in homosexual relationships?) the artwork continues to explore the series’ themes of intimacy, identity, exclusion and desire.