David Hockney (1937-2026) is one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century and is arguably the most important European contributor to the Pop Art movement of the 1960s.
"Three Kings and a Queen" embodies David Hockney's subtly subversive aesthetic, exploring history, representation, and his own identity as a gay man. At first glance, the etching appears to be a whimsical interpretation of playing cards. Yet, when considered within the context of Hockney's life, it emerges as a quiet refusal of heteronormative conformity.
Etching became Hockney's preferred medium during his diploma studies, largely because it was more affordable than painting. Under the guidance of printmaker Julian Trevelyan, he pushed the expressive possibilities of etching beyond its technical conventions. While many of his contemporaries turned toward commercial imagery and consumer culture, Hockney pursued a distinctly autobiographical approach, weaving together literary references, wit, and coded representations of queer experience at a moment when such subjects carried genuine legal and social risk.
Inspired by illustrations from a book on the history of card games, "Three Kings and a Queen" transforms the rigid structure of playing cards into an animated, irreverent composition. Hockney's figures spill beyond their geometric confines, parodying the strict social boundaries of 1960s Britain. The omission of the letter "K" from one figure identifies it as the queen, a detail art historian Jane Kinsman interprets as a visual pun on "king," then-current slang for a gay man. The queen's exaggerated, phallic sword further amplifies the work's playful yet pointed symbolism, turning the composition into an early declaration of Hockney's resistance to the constraints of postwar British society.
The print was awarded the Robert Erskine Graeme Shankland Prize, earning Hockney £100 to finance his first trip to New York in the summer of 1961. The city's comparatively open attitudes toward sexuality proved formative, marking the beginning of a period in which his personal and artistic identities could develop with newfound freedom.
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"Three Kings and a Queen"
London, 1961
Etching and aquatint on handmade paper
Signed, dated and titled in pencil, lower edges of plate
From an edition of approximately 50
Printed by Ron Fuller and Peter Matthews at the Royal College of Art, published by the artist
9"H 25.75"W (plate)
22.5"H 30.5"W (sheet)
Literature:
Scottish Arts Council 7
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo 7
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