Artist David Hockney, who was one of the most influential figures in British art in the 1960s during the Pop Art movement, has died in London. He was 88. He once famously said, “I prefer living in colour.” Picasso and Rembrandt were among his inspirations. Known for his trademark peroxide blonde hair, which he wore with thick-rimmed round glasses, he was also recognised for creating and exploring new mediums in his artwork.
He experimented with faxes, photocopies, Polaroids and the iPad in his work.
His painting “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” broke the record in 2018 for the most expensive painting ever sold at auction by a living artist. The painting, from 1972, was sold for $90.3 million at Christie’s New York in a nine-minute bidding war.
Born in Bradford, he moved to Los Angeles in 1963 and would call himself an “English Los Angeleno”. He was known for being a maximalist in his work, which was evocative and captured urban life. He was one of the few prominent artists of his time who also produced homoerotic imagery and opposed the censoring of homosexual imagery. In Britain, homosexuality remained a criminal offence until 1967.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris hosted his largest exhibition, which ran from April to September 2025, and more than 400 of his works were displayed. The entire building was taken over for the exhibition, and a wide variety of his works were included, including oil and acrylic paintings, ink, pencil and charcoal drawings, digital art (works on iPhone, iPad, photographic drawings) and immersive video installations.
According to the Royal Academy, he studied at Bradford School of Art from 1953 to 1957 and at the Royal College of Art from 1959 until 1962. He was awarded the Royal College of Art gold medal in 1962 in recognition of his mastery as a draughtsman and his innovative painting. His early work was stylistically diverse, combining graffiti-like images with quotations from the poetry of Walt Whitman.
Some of his famous pieces, which also fetched record-breaking prices at auction, include “Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott”, which was sold for $49.52 million at Christie’s. Last year, his painting titled “Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy” was sold at Christie’s for $44.34 million. Another landscape painting called “Nichols Canyon” was sold for $41.07 million. Billionaire media mogul David Geffen had bought his painting “The Splash” for $29.92 million.
King Charles paid a tribute to him and wrote, “My wife and I were greatly saddened to learn of the death of David Hockney O.M., a giant of the world of art and painting, a Yorkshireman through and through, and a dear friend and inspiration to so many.”
He added, “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.”
Remembering the artist who once said, “I can find excitement, I admit, in raindrops falling on a puddle and a lot of people wouldn’t. I intend to have it exciting until the day I fall over.”