Hockney painting expected to fetch at least £5 million (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Beverley Hills Housewife set to smash record for artist's work

2:56pm Monday 23rd March 2009 in Bradford By Michael Black

A David Hockney painting expected to fetch a record sum at auction has gone on public display.

Beverley Hills Housewife will go under the hammer in New York on May 13, and is likely to be sold for between £5 million and £7 million.

This would beat the existing record for a work by the Bradford-born artist, the £2.92 million paid for The Splash in June 2006.

The 12ft by 6ft work is as part of the collection amassed by Betty Freeman, an American philanthropist and patron of the arts, who died in January.

Housewife depicts a 1960s California woman, Miss Freeman, standing on the patio of her luxury home.

Mr Hockney, who studied at Bradford Art College, produced the work between 1966 and 1967, shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, where he visited Miss Freeman to paint her swimming pool for pieces that became the famous California Dreaming series.

Laura Paulson, Christie's deputy chairman and international director of post-war and contemporary art, said: "Beverly Hills Housewife is one of the artist's most fascinating and iconic works and remains a perfect, timeless tribute to Freeman, a modern-day Medici, who will be remembered as an influential patron of our contemporary culture."

Housewife is on show at Christie's in King Street, central London, until Thursday - only the second time the work has ever been displayed in the UK.

In addition to the Hockney, Christie's New York Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale will feature works from Miss Freeman's collection by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

A total of 19 lots from the collection are to be sold, with a total estimate of £18 million to £28 million.

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