David Hockney, celebrated as one of Britain’s leading contemporary painters, passed away on June 11 at his London home at the age of 88. He is survived by his partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, and his brothers, John and Philip Hockney. The announcement of his passing came from his publicist.
Hockney was renowned for his ability to infuse everyday scenes with an ethereal stillness, creating psychologically insightful portraits and vivid pool images. Over his extensive career spanning more than 50 years, he also delved into printmaking, photography, and even stage design for ballet and opera. Known for his experimental nature, he integrated computer graphics into his art as early as the 1980s and ventured into digital painting on his iPad in his later years. A trailblazer for LGBTQ+ rights, he was among the first well-known artists to depict gay relationships in his work and was vocal against censorship of queer imagery.
His vibrant and stark paintings of California’s sunlit poolsides encapsulated a unique 1960s aesthetic—both carefree and sensual, yet tinged with underlying darkness and longing. “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” from 1972, a defining piece of his, set auction records when it sold for $90.3 million in 2018. It portrays a man clad in a pink jacket with lush greenery as a backdrop, peering into a pool where another figure is submerged.
Hockney was born in 1937 in Bradford, England, into a working-class family with four siblings. His father, who repaired baby carriages, was an anti-nuclear campaigner, instilling in Hockney a pacifist outlook and a loyalty to the Labour Party. His mother often appeared in his paintings. At 16, he earned a scholarship to the Bradford School of Art, attending from 1953 to 1957. At 17, he crafted a self-portrait using collaged newsprint, a work that exhibited his intense self-scrutiny and evident talent. Critic Michael Glover noted in a review that “the colors are already threatening to blaze out of control,” shaping the work’s emotional intensity.
From 1959 to 1962, Hockney studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where he honed his drafting skills and experimented with styles ranging from Hogarthian perspectives to Picasso-like figures. He began traveling to the United States in 1961, attracted by its comparatively less restrictive sexual climate. He eventually divided his time between the U.S. and the UK, teaching at universities in Iowa, Colorado, and California between 1964 and 1967.
Hockney’s portraits often featured recurring subjects, including his former lover Peter Schlesinger, assistant Mo McDermott, gallerist John Kasmin, and fashion illustrator Celia Birtwell. Over the years, he chronicled them in psychologically astute portraits, capturing their transformations from youthful freshness to mature resilience in various styles. “Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy” (1970–71) is one such double portrait where Birtwell stands in a regal purple robe while designer Ossie Clark relaxes beside her with his feet in a shag carpet.
Hockney’s first visit to California in 1964 led to his meeting with Schlesinger, a significant figure in his art, as depicted in “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” and “Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool,” which won the John Moores prize in 1967, coinciding with the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain. Jack Hazan’s semi-fictionalized documentary, A Bigger Splash (1974), which Hockney initially disliked but later appreciated, dramatized their breakup. Hockney eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1978, where he lived for many years.
“I thought I was a hedonist at the time, but when I look back I was always working,” Hockney reflected in a 2015 interview with the Guardian. “I am always working.”
In the 1970s, Hockney began incorporating photographs, previously used for reference in his paintings, into collages. His innovative use of one-point perspective continued into the 1980s, where he created complex images from multiple Polaroid pictures arranged in a grid. An evocative piece from 1982 shows his mother in a rainy graveyard, with Hockney’s feet visible in the foreground, poignantly capturing widowhood. By the 1990s, Hockney’s focus shifted to abstract landscapes, and in the 2000s, he returned to Yorkshire, documenting the English countryside.
Hockney’s work eventually gained widespread recognition. In 2022, he painted a portrait of British pop star Harry Styles for an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which opened in 2023 after delays caused by COVID-19. In 2024, the National Gallery of Art in London paired Hockney with 15th-century painter Piero della Francesca, celebrating both the gallery’s 200th anniversary and Hockney’s longstanding admiration for the collection.
Throughout his career, Hockney received numerous accolades. He declined a British knighthood in the 1990s but accepted the Order of Merit, the nation’s highest royal accolade in the arts, in 2012. His work was featured in major solo exhibitions at institutions like the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1970, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1974, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tate in 1988. A retrospective marking his 80th birthday in 2017 traveled to The Met, Centre Pompidou, and Tate Britain, becoming the most-visited exhibition at the latter. A blockbuster exhibition featuring over 400 works at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris concluded less than a year ago.
Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, expressed on Instagram, “He was always completely and courageously himself, both in his work and in life. He taught us about the joy of looking, seeing things the rest of us failed to notice – his witty and sharp observations a constant presence within his work and in person.”
Hockney remained active in his work until the end, even as he experienced hearing loss and began using a wheelchair. As Glover observed, “You do what you can. He does what he does. What else is there? The key is: don’t stop until the darkness descends.”
