Celebrated British artist David Hockney, whose use of colour and technology made him one of the most influential figures in art, has died at the age of 88.
A statement from Hockney's staff 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 11th June, 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday.”
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Celebrated British artist David Hockney has died, aged 88. In later years he painted with an iPad, and created a series of images that became a 90-metre-long frieze, A Year in Normandie, during lockdown in France. AFP -
Hockney talks to fellow guests at a lunch for Members of the Order of Merit at Buckingham Palace, London, in 2022. AFP -
The artist in front of The Queen's Window, which he designed, at Westminster Abbey, London, in 2018. The contemporary stained-glass design celebrates the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. PA -
Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), set against a Californian landscape and completed in 1972, on show at Tate Britain, London, in 2017. Getty Images -
The artist with his painting Fred and Marcia Weisman at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in 2017. AFP -
Hockney with his works at the Royal Academy of Arts, in London, in 2017. PA -
Hockney with his work Card Players, left, and digital 'photographic drawing' A Bigger Card Players, at Annely Juda Fine Art in central London in 2015. -
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II presents Mr Hockney with the Order of Merit at Buckingham Palace in London in 2012. AFP -
One of Hockney's most famous works, The Splash, painted in 1966. Getty Images -
The artist with Britain's Prince Charles during a visit to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in Calfornia, in 1994. AFP -
Hockney, left, with American pop artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol in 1976. Getty Images -
The artist, wearing his trademark round glasses, in 1971. Getty Images -
Hockney at the Royal Court Theatre in London, UK, July 1966, on the set he designed for the play Ubu Roi. Getty Images
In 2018, his painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) was sold at auction in New York for $90 million (£70 million) – setting a record for a work by a living artist.
Long viewed as a “national treasure”, with his huge round glasses, gentle Yorkshire burr and bleached blond hair – replaced in later years by a series of flat caps - his image was almost as distinctive and familiar as his paintings.
While liberally drawing on the art of the past – from the Renaissance masters to the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock – Hockney consistently pursued his own path, refusing to conform to the artistic fashions of the day.
As an art school rebel, he was initially denied a diploma, in part because he refused to complete an essay assignment, insisting he should be judged on his art alone.
At the start of his career, when the dominant strand in the avant-garde was abstraction, he bucked the trend, painting figuratively, often in bright colours with a primitivist style.
Having grown up under the northern English skies of industrial Bradford, he was enthralled by the light and freedoms of 1960s California, making the state his main home for 40 years.
In later years, he embraced technology, drawing and painting flowers and landscapes on an iPad. When some critics decried his embrace of landscape painting as a retrograde step, he made clear he “didn’t give a damn” about such carping.
