Art News: David Hockney prices, what his paintings and prints sold for in 2026

A David Hockney painting sold at auction in 2026 for between about £1.9 million and $6.6 million, and his prints sold for anything from under £4,000 to over £500,000. We went through every Hockney lot Sotheby's offered in 2026, up to 10 November: 94 lots in 22 sales in London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and elsewhere. 89 of them sold. All prices below include the buyer's premium.

Whitebank Fine Art, a London art advisory and gallery, values and sells Hockney's work, and this is what the results show.

David Hockney prices at a glance

What it is	Sold at Sotheby's in 2026
Paintings	£1,920,000 to $6,586,000
Large multi-panel iPad prints, editions of 25	£1,920,000 and $1,984,000
The Arrival of Spring iPad prints, 2011, editions of 25	£192,000 to £512,000
iPad flower prints, 2021, editions of 50	£38,400 to £48,640
Other prints, sought-after images	£44,800 to $192,000
Other prints, smaller images and portraits	$3,840 to about £20,000

The auction record for Hockney is $90.3 million, paid at Christie's in New York in November 2018 for Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), of 1972.

David Hockney painting prices

Six works sold at Sotheby's for more than a million in 2026, and four of them were paintings:

Work	Medium	Sale	Price
The Valley, Mountains in Var (Near La Garde-Freinet), 1970	Acrylic on canvas	New York, 14 May	$6,586,000
Henry Reading, 1985	Acrylic, charcoal and collage on board	London, 15 October	£2,821,000
Two Chairs and a Wooden Spoon, July 1988	Oil on canvas	London, 24 June	£2,164,000
18th–27th June 2021, La Dorette Winding its Way	Eight iPad paintings printed on one sheet, edition of 25	New York, 14 May	$1,984,000
English Garden, 1965	Acrylic on canvas	London, 4 March	£1,920,000
10th–22nd June 2021, Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers	Six iPad paintings printed on two sheets, edition of 25	London, 15 October	£1,920,000

Henry Reading carried an estimate of £2.2 million to £2.8 million. Two Chairs and a Wooden Spoon is only 61 cm square, and its owner had bought it from the gallery in 1988.

At Christie's in London on 14 October, Dog Painting 17, a small oil of his dachshund Stanley from 1995, sold for £3.51 million, more than twice its low estimate.

What Hockney's iPad prints sell for

The prints Hockney drew on an iPad and printed on paper are editions, but the large ones sell at painting prices.

The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011. Each sheet is an iPad drawing printed in colour, 139.7 by 105.4 cm, in an edition of 25. On 5 March Sotheby's in London sold sixteen of them from one collection. The first was estimated at £100,000 to £150,000, and all sixteen sold, for between £192,000 and £486,400 each and £4.54 million in all. Another made £512,000 in London on 25 June. In New York two sold for $192,000 and $217,600, and others sold in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The 2021 flowers. On 16 October Sotheby's in London sold twenty iPad paintings of flowers from 2021, each 89 by 63.5 cm in an edition of 50. The first was estimated at £25,000 to £35,000, and all twenty sold, for between £38,400 and £48,640, £853,760 in all.

What Hockney's other prints sell for

Most Hockney lots are prints, and here the image decides the price.

• Pools and water. Lithographic Water Made of Lines, Crayon, and Two Blue Washes sold for $192,000 in New York on 8 October and £121,600 in London in March. Pool Made with Paper and Blue Ink for Book made £64,000.
• Later prints. Study of 'The Entrance', from the My Normandy series, made £128,000 in London in September, and Pictured Gathering with Mirror £108,800 in the same sale. Still Life with Book made $102,400 in New York.
• Fairy tales and dogs. Lots from his Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm sold for between $17,920 and £70,400. Small Dogs made $44,800, and Contrejour in the French Style £44,800.
• Portraits and small etchings. Sixteen of the lots that sold made less than about £12,000. They include lithographs of Celia Birtwell at £6,400 to £8,960 in London and $6,144 to $8,960 in New York, and small prints such as Byron on Hand and My Mother at the Age of Twenty at $4,096 and Oedipus Rex and Sidney in His Office at $3,840.

The five lots that did not sell were all prints estimated at £5,000 to £8,000 or $6,000 to $12,000, two of them portraits of Celia Birtwell.

A poster is a different thing from a print. One Hockney poster made €12,800 at Sotheby's in Paris this year, but it was a 1985 Paris Vogue poster sold from Karl Lagerfeld's estate, and the price followed the owner.

What decides the price of a Hockney

• Unique or edition. Paintings and drawings are one of a kind. Prints come in editions, and the size of the edition, usually printed on the sheet, matters.
• The image. In this year's results, pools, water, flowers and landscapes made far more than the portraits of friends.
• Size. The iPad prints are big, and the biggest, printed across several sheets, reached seven figures.
• The catalogue. Sotheby's lists most Hockney prints by their number in the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo catalogue of his prints, or the Scottish Arts Council one. A print that is in neither needs more checking.
• Condition and paperwork. Fading, mount burn and trimmed margins all cut the price, and a receipt from the gallery that sold the print helps.

Our guide to Hockney editions explains the main series, and auction fees explained sets out the premium and other costs that sit inside these prices.

Hockney at auction this month

Sotheby's has more Hockneys in New York in November, among them A Visit with Mo and Lisa, Echo Park, estimated at $3 million to $4 million, Three Dragonflies in the Garden at $100,000 to $150,000, and a Sketch for the Rake's Progress at $60,000 to $80,000.

Hockney price questions

How much is a David Hockney painting worth? The paintings sold at Sotheby's in 2026 made between £1.92 million and $6.59 million, and Christie's sold Dog Painting 17 for £3.51 million. His record is $90.3 million, from 2018.

How much is a David Hockney print worth? Most of his prints sold for between about £4,000 and £50,000 in 2026. Sought-after images, such as his water lithographs, made over £100,000, and The Arrival of Spring iPad prints made £192,000 to £512,000.

Are Hockney's iPad prints valuable? Yes. The 2021 flowers sold for £38,400 to £48,640 each, and the largest multi-sheet works made close to £2 million.

Is a Hockney poster worth anything? Posters are reproductions made in large numbers, and they are valued as posters rather than as prints. A print is usually signed and numbered in pencil, and a poster usually carries the name of an exhibition or a gallery.

What is the most expensive David Hockney? Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), of 1972, which sold for $90.3 million at Christie's in New York in November 2018.

If you own a Hockney

Send us photographs of the front, the signature and numbering, any label on the back and any receipt, through our Hockney valuation page. If you are selling, our guide to selling a Hockney compares the routes to market. There is no obligation to sell, and we act for you rather than for the saleroom.

Cover: William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress, plate 1, 1735, etching and engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain. Hockney made his own A Rake's Progress, a set of etchings, in 1961 to 1963.