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The 1966 work is a square acrylic painting
showing the moment water splashes up in a swimming pool just
after a diver enters.
The 82-year-old British artist painted it when he lived in Los
Angeles, where his long-running interest in swimming pool
subjects began.
The composition of "The Splash", including the angled diving
board, was inspired by a photograph Hockney saw in a Hollywood
magazine on how to build swimming pools.
"I loved the idea of painting this thing that lasts for two
seconds; it takes me two weeks to paint this event that lasts
for two seconds," he said of the painting in a 1976 book,
Hockney by Hockney.
It is the second in a series of three splash paintings. "A
Little Splash" is in a private collection and "A Bigger Splash"
is in London's Tate Britain gallery.
The last time this picture was sold at auction, in 2006, it went
for 2.9 million pounds ($5.4 million).
"It's an icon of Pop that defined an era and also gave a visual
identity to LA," said Emma Baker, head of Sotheby's contemporary
art evening sale.
In 2018, Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two
Figures)" from 1972 sold for $90.3 million at Christie's in New
York, smashing the record for the highest price ever paid at
auction for a work by a living artist.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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