This could be the most expensive painting ever

The clear water of the pool seems to shimmer before your eyes, framed by the crisp, rough lines of the tiles. Beyond, you can get lost in the wild, verdant forest and hills that loom like huge waves.

One figure is submerged underwater. He is semi-naked, anonymous and free, while the other looks on, an overdressed, slightly awkward spectator.

Today, David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) may become the most expensive painting by a living artist ever sold at auction.

It is being sold at Christie’s auction house in New York for an estimated $80 million (£62 million), which would break the $58.4 million (£45.2 million) record set by Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog in 2013.

Hockney, who is now 81, moved from the north of England to Los Angeles in 1964. The city’s sunny glamour quickly became a major focus of his work, particularly the private pools that are common in LA.

”I always loved swimming pools, all the wiggly lines they make,” Hockney said last year. “If you photograph them, it freezes them, whereas if you use paint, you can have wiggly lines that wiggle.”

He painted Portrait of an Artist in 1972, as his five-year relationship with his muse Peter Schlesinger was breaking down. The man in the pink jacket is modelled on photographs of Schlesinger.

For many, this background of heartbreak adds to the painting’s mystery. Who is the man in the pool: Hockney, or a new lover of Schlesinger’s? Why is it titled Portrait of an Artist if Hockney might not be there?

Hockney worked 18 hours a day for two weeks to complete the painting, which is the only one to combine his two great themes: pools and double portraits.

His work is not universally admired. The artist Lucian Freud, who died in 2011, was said to be “quite scathing” about his rival’s paintings.

Chris Stephens, who recently curated an exhibition of Hockney’s works at the Tate, said he is not a “terribly highly skilled” painter, although he acknowledged the artist’s ability to turn ordinary things “into something really beautiful.”

Can a painting really be worth that much?

Where to draw the line

Absolutely not, say some. The art market has got out of hand, and bidding on prestigious works has become a competitive sport for billionaires. All it highlights is that too much of the world’s wealth is in the hands of too few individuals. Hockney is a popular painter, but no art can truly be worth $80 million.

Don’t be so sure. In the modern world, where art and words are copied endlessly across the internet, there is immense value in something truly original and one of a kind. The price of great art does not just include the painting, but a vision of the artist — some might say his soul. Hockney is one of the very best. It is no wonder his art is valued so highly.