David Hockney passed away peacefully at his home in London on June 11, 2026, a month before his 89th birthday.
David Hockney studied art in Bradford, then in London, where he graduated in 1962. He quickly gained attention for his style and original personality.
In 1963, he traveled to New York, but it was California that truly captivated him. This state became his greatest source of inspiration. There, he discovered a new way of life that profoundly affected him: the beautiful villas with their swimming pools, and the burgeoning gay community, of which he was openly a part.
David Hockney draws inspiration from his private life for his paintings: his loved ones, the landscapes around him, and the artists he admires. He rejects abstract and conceptual art and does not want to belong to any specific artistic movement.
Hockney was color that never stopped, curiosity that never aged. Over the last sixty years, he had established himself as an emblematic figure of the art scene.
A lifetime spent observing the world more closely
A figure of pop art in the 1960s, he distinguished himself by his ability to reinvent himself, mastering academic techniques before embracing new technologies, with his iPad works, created after the age of 70.
The scope of his output is breathtaking: oil paintings, iPad drawings, watercolors, charcoal, acrylics, collages, multi-screen videos, and even sets and costumes for operas. Few artists have so vehemently refused to be confined to a single medium.
© David Hockney, Courtesy Galerie Lelong
Swimming pools, of course
His paintings captured the world in vibrant colors, from the carefree California of the 1960s to the bucolic landscapes of his native Yorkshire. The artist leaves behind immense works, notably marked by his famous Californian swimming pools, which have become icons of contemporary art.
These swimming pools are familiar to everyone, even without knowing Hockney.
This still blue water, this blazing sun, this California that seems to exist outside of time. It has become a visual language in its own right.
But the virtuoso painter was also admired for his portraits of the artists he associated with, his self-portraits, and his landscapes of Normandy, where he went into exile after Brexit. He spent the last part of his life painting the changing seasons in the French countryside.
© David Hockney, Courtesy Galerie Lelong
And a year ago, the Louis Vuitton Foundation dedicated an exceptional retrospective to him, bringing together no less than 400 major works: a way of paying tribute to him while he was still alive.
The legacy of a gaze
What Hockney leaves behind is not just a list of works, but a way of seeing. His instantly recognizable style is based on a palette of vivid colors, luminous flat planes, and a perspective that plays with the codes of photography without ever fully submitting to them.
Among his major works, A Bigger Splash (1967) remains the quintessential image of a dreamlike California. That splash frozen in perfectly blue water, without ever revealing the diver. In 1973, a film of the same name was made about it, which made the painting and Hockney famous worldwide.
Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972), one of the most expensive paintings ever sold by a living artist, has long embodied the pinnacle of the contemporary art market.
Et My Parents (1977), a tender and rigorous portrait of his mother and father, shows a Hockney capable of an intimacy that his sunlit swimming pools do not always reveal.
But perhaps his most lasting legacy lies elsewhere: in his demonstration that an artist can remain relevant at any age, provided they maintain their curiosity. He paved the way for a whole generation of artists who no longer see technology as a threat to painting, but as a new brush.
Hockney spent his life blurring boundaries: between pop art and tradition, between England and California, between painting and digital technology. He leaves behind an art that rejects melancholy, and a simple, almost obstinate message: the world deserves to be looked at with wonder, again and again.
https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org
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