David Hockney, pioneering British artist famed for his pools and portraits, dies aged 88

[Celerity]

The peroxide blond painter from Yorkshire made his name with sunkissed visions of California and never stopped breaking barriers, going on to become one of contemporary art’s most important figures

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jun/12/artist-david-hockney-dies


David Hockney in 2017. Photograph: Aurélien Meunier/Getty Images

David Hockney, the iconic British painter who cast a revolutionary gaze across 20th-century art, has died aged 88. He made his name as a pop artist during the swinging 60s and was perhaps best known for his paintings of swimming pools that helped define the Los Angeles aesthetic. Works such as A Bigger Splash and Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) depicted hedonistic scenes of love, lust and loss taking place below the city’s sun-soaked skies. But Hockney’s six-decade career cannot be defined by a single era. He produced perspective-shifting portraits using photo-collage, experimented with abstract landscape painting and, in later life, investigated the possibilities of creating artworks out of emerging 3D technology.

The artist Tracey Emin said she felt privileged to have known Hockney, adding: “A great artist and a wonderful man, who with the power of art changed the perception of Britishness. A proud chain-smoking homosexual, who flew the flag higher than any other British artist.” The UK prime minister Keir Starmer was also among the first to pay tribute to Hockney. “The prime minister is saddened to hear of the death of David Hockney, one of Britain’s most celebrated artists,” a spokesperson said. “His vivid, instantly recognisable work influenced generations of artists, and the prime minister’s thoughts are with his friends and family.”



King Charles said Hockney was a man of “irrepressible charm, talent and constant innovation”. Writing on social media, Charles said Hockney was “a giant of the world of art and painting, a Yorkshireman through and through, and a dear friend and inspiration to so many.” He wrote: “David was one of life’s true originals; one who wore his genius as lightly as those beloved yellow Crocs of his that helped brighten Palace occasions. I trust they will see him tread safely into the hereafter as we mourn a man whose irrepressible charm, talent and constant innovation will be most sorely missed, but whose dazzling creativity lives on in galleries and museums around the world.”

A statement from Hockney’s representatives said: “The celebrated British artist David Hockney, one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries, passed away peacefully at home on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday.” It added: “David Hockney’s enduring legacy reflects his underlying enthusiasm for life, his outstanding sense of humour, his immense generosity and his investigative curiosity encapsulated by his signature phrase: Love Life. “Details of memorials will follow in due course.”

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