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Poster produced for David Hockney’s 1981 exhibition at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which displayed the sets and costumes he designed for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera’s 1975 production of The Rakes Progress. As with Hockney’s 1961-63 etchings, A Rake’s Progress, William Hogarth’s series of prints by the same name was the inspiration for the three-act avant-garde opera by Igor Stravinsky with absurdist libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman. Leo Goeke was cast as Tom Rakewell, with direction by John Cox. In his sets, Hockney used crosshatching and parallel lines to mimic Hogarth’s prints. This exuberant, multi-colored poster captures the final scene in the opera, when the curtain is dropped over the main characters, who moralize, “For idle hands, and hearts and minds, the Devil finds a work to do.”
This vintage poster was designed by the artist in our studio and comes directly from our Petersburg Press archive. It is not pre-owned. Also available in our storefront is the vintage poster for the 1982 San Francisco Opera production of The Rake’s Progress, featuring Hockney’s sets.
