06/12/2026
David Hockney, one of the 20th century’s most famous artists best-known for his depictions of the sunny glitz of 1960s Los Angeles, has died at age 88. He was just one month away from his 89th birthday.
Hockney is one of contemporary art’s most influential and immediately recognizable figures in his signature cap, round glasses, and colorful, often checkered attire. Widely beloved by audiences and critics alike, he remained unconcerned with the contemporary art trends. He continued painting the subjects he loved right up until the near end of his life, which included people and places he encountered over the course of years spent living in London, Los Angeles, East Yorkshire, and Normandy, to name a few.
Many associate Hockney with his sun-drenched figurative paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools. The most famous of these is “A Bigger Splash” (1967), which shows a yellow diving board jutting out into a clear blue pool whose tranquility has been disrupted by someone who has just dove into the pool. Some of them have commanded many millions at auction, like 1972’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), showing a man looking into the pool as another man swims underwater to the edge. It sold at Christie’s for $90.3 million in 2018, and at the time, it was the most expensive auctioned artwork by a living artist.
Read more about Hockney’s life and work at the link in our bio.
