DAVID HOCKNEY DRAWING OF ‘OZ’ EDITOR RICHARD NEVILLE ‘NAKED’ FOR SALE AT BONHAMS
“I sat naked on a chair as David Hockney, his eyes huge through pop specs, coolly appraised my loins. I felt shy and under equipped.” So wrote the editor of counter-culture magazine Oz, Richard Neville, about his experience sitting for Hockney’s drawing ‘Richard Neville Naked’, which is up for auction at Bonhams as part of its Post War and Contemporary Art and Design sale on 10th March 2010.
The picture (estimate £10,000 – 15,000) was used, alongside drawings of Neville’s co-editors Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis, to raise funds for the Oz obscenity trial in 1971, in which Neville, Anderson and Dennis were prosecuted for publishing a sexual Rupert Bear cartoon parody in an issue of the magazine edited by a group of school kids. It is not known what has happened to the pictures of Anderson and Dennis.
Hockney was one of dozens of artists who donated works to the Oz defence fund. The original drawings of the editors naked were put up for auction at the time, along with numbered lithographs, combined into a triptych.
The trial became a cause celebre testing boundaries on censorship which had remained largely unchallenged since the Lady Chatterley’s Lover court case in the early 1960s. The three were found guilty and sent to prison where the shaving of their heads caused yet more controversy, though the convictions were later overturned on appeal.
A complete set of the 48 issues of 'OZ' magazine published between 1967-1973, including the infamous 'Schoolkids' issue, is also being offered by Bonhams in the Printed Books, Maps and Manuscripts sale on 23 March. The complete set is estimated at £1,000 - 2,000.
Bonhams
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further five throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Boston in the USA; Toronto, Canada; and France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist areas. By the end of 2009, Bonhams had become UK market leaders in ten key specialist collecting areas.For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, go to www.bonhams.com
