David Hockney Death in Harlem (M.C.A.T 22) For Sale

Death in Harlem is the sixth plate in David Hockney’s series of 16 etchings called A Rake’s Progress. In this series, which he began in 1961, inspired by his first visit to New York that summer, whilst still a student at Royal College of Art, and finished in 1963, Hockney illustrates the breadth of cultural references that make up his artistic output. In A Rake’s Progress, Hockney segues between influences, such as semi-autobiographical literature, Walt Whitman poetry, Art Brut artist, Jean Dubuffet and film references and advertising slogans: in Death in Harlem, he references the Black American photographer, James Van der Zee’s seminal images of Harlem funeral parlours.

By the time, Hockney has got to Death in Harlem in the A Rake’s Progress series, he is beginning to reach the desolution and despair that mirrors that of William Hogarth’s 18^th century version of the Rake: whilst Hockney’s ‘Rake,’ a young gay artist based on himself, has experienced moments of joy and liberation in prints like, New York, Gospel Singer (Good People) in Madison Square Gardens, The Drinking Scene, this artwork begins his downward spiral and feelings of discontent with the city.

The subject of the images and area of the city, the dead people of the funeral parlour in Harlem, is dark and unsettling; yet Hockney gives new life to the celebrated Black American photographer, James Van Der Zee’s famed images of black New Yorkers and the 1920’s Harlem Renaissance, in which he created a timeless photographic record of American social history.

Van Der Zee’s images were groundbreaking in their celebratory depiction of the dead: these African Americans, who had often come to Harlem from post-civil war enslavement, were often swathed in fine silk embroidered gowns and tulle sheathes surrounded by bright floral bouquets, and artworks that depict the hand of angels who will keep them safe in an afterlife. Hockney deliberately references the pedestal on which Van Der Zee placed his subjects: in Death in Harlem, a dead woman is sprawled over a bed which is covered in soft fabrics, the woman appears to have an embroidered headscarf and holding some flowers. In the background hangs an image of a beautiful rose etched on black paper: overlooking the image is a kneeling angel wearing a floaty gown and wings praying for this ‘sacred’ woman.

In Death of Harlem, Hockney portrays only the head of the ‘Rake’ figure in profile: distinctive with his clean frame and rimmed glasses, he is for the first time depicted in the fiery red ink used for slogans and cloud bubbles in the other images. However, in this image, the ‘Rake’ is looking away from the dead woman and funeral scene, adding to the sense of isolation and ‘otherness’ that the whole artwork exudes.

Death of Harlem further cements the central themes of A Rake’s Progress, as if Hockney in his position as a gay ‘outsider’ can feel comfort in the marginalised Harlem communities, but also look forward to a future heading towards social, cultural and sexual revolution.