The City’s eyes were elsewhere this morning, fixed on gilt yields and the morning’s inflation print. But those who deal in the currency of culture were gathered in a small Suffolk church for the quiet farewell of David Hockney, the artist who turned the British landscape into a liquid asset.
At 87, Hockney’s exit from the stage was as understated as his later years. No state funeral, no televised procession. Just a handful of friends, family, and a few titans of the art world who flew in from their tax havens to pay respects. For a man whose swimming pools and California sunsets commanded eight-figure sums at auction, it was a curiously frugal exit.
The market, however, is already pricing in the premium. Hockney’s estate will be a battleground for trustees and collectors, with prices for his work expected to jump by 20 to 30 per cent within the quarter. The death of a master always creates a liquidity event, and dealers are already circling.
Tributes poured in from the global elite. The Prince of Wales sent a note. A Hollywood director who owns three Hockneys released a statement about “loss and legacy”. But the real eulogy was written by the secondary market. His 2018 portrait of his dealer sold privately last week for a sum that would cover the GDP of a small island nation.
There is a cruel efficiency to this. Hockney understood the mechanics of value better than most. He painted the kind of joy that made you forget the cost of things. But make no mistake, art is a market like any other. And when the supply is capped permanently, the price churns upwards.
The funeral itself was a lesson in deflation. A modest wooden coffin, a local vicar, and a piece by Purcell floating through the cold air. No expensive floral displays, no marquee. Hockney, who once said “I don’t care if I’m remembered,” seemed to have engineered his own liquidation event with maximum discretion.
Yet the capital flight has already begun. The moment the news broke, two of his lesser-known works were pulled from a Sotheby’s auction in New York. The consignors suddenly realised they were sitting on a fixed-income asset with a new expiry date. Expect a flurry of private sales before the market fully reprices.
There is something indecent about this alchemy. But it is the reality of late-stage capitalism. Death is the ultimate quantitative easing for an artist’s legacy. Hockney’s legacy will now be leveraged, traded, and hedged. The man who once gave away a painting to a waitress in Malibu will now be the subject of a multi-billion-pound industry.
He leaves behind a world that is both richer and poorer. His eyes saw colour where others saw risk. And although the funeral was quiet, the reverberations in the art market will be anything but. For those holding Hockneys, this is a moment of yield. For the rest of us, it is a reminder that even in death, the bottom line persists.