Notes

Printed by Mark Stock.

The present lot depicts British-American writer Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), famed for his semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin (1939) that inspired the musical Cabaret (1966), and his partner Don Bachardy (1934-), an American portraitist. David Hockney befriended the couple in the mid-1960s when he first moved to Los Angeles, California. In 1968, he painted a stunning large double portrait of Isherwood and Bachardy, which is visually very similar to this lithograph from 8 years later. In both, the pair are seated in their Santa Monica home that had views of the Malibu beach they met on in 1952.¹ Of the composition, Hockney recalled, “Whenever I said, ‘Relax,’ Christopher always sat with his foot across his knee, and he always looked at Don. Don never looked that way; he was always looking at me. So I thought, that’s the pose it should be.”² This double portrait configuration, with one sitter looking at the viewer and the other in profile, is the first of its kind for Hockney and is one that he would revisit often throughout his oeuvre.

Despite the hostility faced by gay people in conservative America (and globally) in the mid-1900s, and even though there was a 30-year age gap between Isherwood and Bachardy, their love and partnership endured for 34 years, until Isherwood’s death from cancer in 1986. The present lot is a touchingly intimate and unapologetic view into their relationship.

¹ Michael Cirigliano II (2018) The Met, Exploring the Love Letters of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, online, https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/animals-love-letters-christopher-isherwood-don-bachardy, accessed 10 March 2025.
²https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/1968

Literature

Scottish Arts Council (1979) David Hockney Prints 1954-1977, Edinburgh: Scottish Arts Council, unpaginated.