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David Hockney art owned by models sells for £31K

Charterhouse Auctioneers Photograph of David HockneyCharterhouse Auctioneers
A small photograph of David Hockney sold for £400

A collection of David Hockey artworks owned by a married couple that featured in his paintings has sold at auction for more than £31,000.

The collection from David and Ann Graves, who moved to Sherborne, Dorset, in 2013, included a picture montage of Mrs Graves - formerly Upton.

She met the pop-artist in 1960 and became his model in 1962.

Mr Graves became Hockney's assistant in the 1970s and when the couple married Hockney photographed their wedding.

Charterhouse Auctioneers Ann Graves photo montageCharterhouse Auctioneers
A picture montage of Ann Graves - formerly Upton - made £580
Charterhouse Auctioneers Ann Graves artwork by David HockneyCharterhouse Auctioneers
Mrs Graves became one of Hockney's models in 1962

Mr Graves, who was a sculptor and paper restorer, moved to Hollywood with Hockney when he was appointed his assistant.

By the early 1980s he too started appearing in Hockney's paintings and drawings. Mr Graves died last year.

The photograph montage of Mrs Graves, who died in 2017, sold for £580 at Charterhouse Auctioneers in Sherborne.

Other artworks in the collection included a print of Little Stanley, a print of one of Hockney's dogs, which sold for £5,000.

Charterhouse Auctioneers Byron Upton photographs by HockneyCharterhouse Auctioneers
Two photographs of Byron Upton, Mrs Grave's son, sold for £3,600
Charterhouse Auctioneers Little Stanley by HockneyCharterhouse Auctioneers
Little Stanley, a print of one of Hockney's dogs, sold for £5,000

A Hockney fax copy entitled "Rococo" - which was one of his works from 1989 - went for £2,200, a David Dawson photograph of Hockney and British painter Lucien Freud sold for £760 and a small photograph of Hockney made £400.

Two photographs of Byron Upton, Mrs Graves' son, taken and inscribed by Hockney sold for £3,600. Byron died in a train accident in London, aged 16, in 1982.

Charterhouse Auctioneers David Dawson photograph of David Hockney and Lucien FreudCharterhouse Auctioneers
A photograph, taken by David Dawson, of Hockney and British painter Lucien Freud was also included in the collection

"It was a fascinating collection of modern art carefully selected over the past 50 years," said Richard Bromell, of Charterhouse.

"There was fierce online internet bidding from across the UK, America and Germany as collectors tried to outbid each other."

Hockney, 82, is considered an important contributor to the pop-art movement of the 1960s and one of the most influential British artists of the 20th Century.