Artist David Hockney, master of pool paintings, dies at 88
British artist David Hockney, whose shimmering California pool scenes became 20th-century icons, died Thursday at his London home.
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David Hockney, the British artist whose paintings of pools glimmering in Los Angeles sunshine became defining works of 20th-century art, has died at 88. His publicist, Erica Bolton, said Hockney died Thursday at his home in London, less than a month before his 89th birthday. No cause was given.
One of the most popular and critically lauded British artists of the past century, Hockney was born in Bradford in northern England but spent much of his life in Southern California, where sun-drenched suburban views became a signature motif in his work. Later in life he returned to Europe, finding renewed inspiration in the wooded hills of Yorkshire and the fields of Normandy, France.
His works sold for record prices at auction, and he became one of the U.K.'s most treasured artists. Historian Simon Schama wrote that Hockney's enduring appeal lies in how his work presupposes "an expectation of pleasure." "His work is admired — loved is not too strong a word — by the millions who, worldwide, flock to see it," Schama wrote in an essay accompanying a 2025 Paris exhibition.
Hockney emerged as a icon of the swinging 1960s with his trademark round glasses and bleached-blond hair, making an impact even before graduating from London's Royal College of Art. Art dealer John Kasmin took him into his stable of artists in 1961. His paintings created dreamlike worlds of patterned light bouncing off water and windows, with human forms rendered in flattened, simplified shapes in matte acrylic paint.
His artistic influences ranged from Renaissance portraitists to J.M.W. Turner, Pablo Picasso's Cubism experiments, and American pop art. Like Andy Warhol, he occasionally incorporated advertising labels into his work, such as a Typhoo Tea box in his 1961 "Tea Painting in an Illusionistic Style."
He is survived by his longtime partner Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, his great-nephew and studio assistant Richard Hockney, his brothers Philip and John, and numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.