David Hockney, Celebrated British Artist, Dies at 89

David Hockney, the British-born artist whose vibrant swimming pool paintings, Yorkshire landscapes, and pioneering embrace of digital art made him one of the most celebrated and recognisable figures in modern art, has died at the age of 88. He passed away peacefully at his home in London on June 11, 2026, one month before his 89th birthday.

His publicist, Erica Bolton, confirmed the news on June 12. According to Artlyst, Hockney’s death closes a career spanning seven decades, an output of extraordinary range and restless invention, and a life lived with open, argumentative, pleasure-seeking intelligence.

A Life in Art

Born on July 9, 1937, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, Hockney trained at the Bradford School of Art before winning a place at the Royal College of Art in London, where he graduated in 1962 with the Gold Medal. He arrived at the RCA at a pivotal moment, as part of a generation about to change British art. His early work drew on abstract expressionism before he moved decisively toward figuration and linear mark-making — both deeply unfashionable at the time.

In 1964, Hockney moved to Los Angeles, where he found the subject matter that would make him famous worldwide. The light, the swimming pools, the flat geometries of the California landscape produced some of the most immediately recognisable paintings of the 20th century. “A Bigger Splash” (1967) and the large double portraits that followed, including “Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy” (1971), turned observation into something more complex: an investigation of how people occupy space and how paint can slow time to a stop.

Beyond the Canvas

Hockney’s intellectual curiosity drove him beyond painting into questions about how images are made and how seeing itself works. The photographic collages of the 1980s — his “joiners” — used a Cubist logic to challenge fixed-point perspective, combining multiple viewpoints into single images that suggested the passage of time. “Pearblossom Hwy” (1986) remains one of the most original photographic works of its era.

In 2001, he published “Secret Knowledge” with physicist Charles Falco, arguing that Renaissance and post-Renaissance artists used optical devices as early as the 1420s. Initially controversial among art historians, the Hockney-Falco Thesis has since been taken seriously by younger scholars.

When the iPhone and iPad arrived, Hockney adopted them immediately for plein air drawing with a speed and enthusiasm that surprised many. “The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate” (2011) and “A Year in Normandie” — the 90-metre iPad painting begun in 2020 during the pandemic — demonstrated that he was still finding new ways to think about observation, time, and landscape well into his ninth decade.

A Pioneering Queer Artist

Hockney was a pioneering figure in queer art. He depicted gay domestic life openly at a time when homosexuality was still criminalised in the UK. His 1961 painting “We Two Boys Together Clinging” was described by Hockney himself as “propaganda of something I felt hadn’t been propagandised as a subject: homosexuality.” Tracey Emin, the artist, called him “a proud chain-smoking homosexual, who flew the flag higher than any other British artist.”

Honours and Legacy

Hockney was appointed Companion of Honour in 1997 and received the Order of Merit in 2012. Earlier this year, he became one of the very few non-French citizens to receive the rank of Officier in the Légion d’Honneur. He turned down a knighthood in 1990, maintaining a famously ambivalent relationship with official honours.

In 2018, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” sold for $90.3 million at Christie’s, setting a record for a living artist at the time. His iPad drawings sold for £6.2 million at auction in 2025.

Tributes

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Hockney’s “vivid, instantly recognisable work influenced generations of artists.” King Charles III called him “a giant of the world of art and painting, a Yorkshireman through and through, and a dear friend and inspiration to so many.” The King added: “David was one of life’s true originals; one who wore his genius as lightly as those beloved yellow Crocs of his.”

Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, said: “David was an endlessly inventive artist, with a unique vision of the world. He was always completely and courageously himself, both in his work and in life. He taught us about the joy of looking.”

What’s Next

Tate Britain is planning a major exhibition of Hockney’s work in 2027, and Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is preparing a multimedia installation — both projects were being developed with Hockney before his death and will proceed. His most recent exhibition at the Serpentine North Gallery remains on view.

Hockney is survived by his longtime partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima; his great-nephew Richard, who worked as his studio assistant; his brothers Philip and John; and numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.

His signature phrase, which concluded his obituary statement, was simply: “Love life.”