Artnet News reports that David Hockney's 1968 double portrait *Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy* sold for $44.3 million at Christie's on November 17, becoming the artist's third-most expensive work at auction. The painting had previously failed to sell at Sotheby's in 1985, bought in at $570,000. Artnet's reporting revealed that the Christie's catalogue omitted the name of Andrew Crispo, a once-prominent New York dealer, from the painting's provenance. The article details Crispo's meteoric rise from a troubled youth in Philadelphia to a savvy art dealer who championed American Modernism, his important clients including Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, and his dramatic fall due to tax fraud, a prison sentence, and the IRS seizure of his inventory.
This story matters because it highlights the complex and often hidden histories behind major art market transactions. The omission of Crispo's name from the provenance of a record-breaking sale raises questions about how the art world handles the legacies of disgraced figures. It also underscores the dramatic appreciation of Hockney's market over four decades, transforming a bought-in liability into a multimillion-dollar trophy, while reviving interest in a notorious chapter of New York's art history.