W, from Hockney's Alphabet, 1991

David Hockney's letter W comes from Hockney's Alphabet, the 1991 portfolio in which the artist reimagined all twenty-six letters as full-page colour lithographs. Hockney layers the W: a red W behind, a black-and-white dotted W, and at the centre a blue hatched W set on a black slab, with a green brushstroke and a pen grid along the base — one letter built up in overlapping registers of colour and pattern. Hockney's Alphabet was conceived by the poet Sir Stephen Spender and published in 1991 to raise funds for the AIDS Crisis Trust. Hockney drew each of the twenty-six letters, and Spender invited a celebrated writer to respond to one apiece — among them Susan Sontag, Seamus Heaney, Iris Murdoch, Joyce Carol Oates, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan — pairing image and text in a singular dialogue between art and literature. This is the individual W plate: a colour lithograph on Exhibition Fine Art Cartridge paper, with full margins, measuring 12 3/5 × 9 2/5 in (32 × 24 cm), from the edition of 250, signed on the justification page by the artist and editor (a copy accompanies the work). Offered unframed; framing is available for an additional $295.