Artist David Hockney, who died aged 88 on June 12, 2026, is pictured here with his artworks "Card Players #3 2014" (L) and "A Bigger Card Players 2015" at a press preview of his exhibition "Painting and Photography" in central London, on May 14, 2015. (Credit: Leon Neal/AFP)
Tributes poured in for David Hockney, the 1960s pop art pioneer who established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept experimenting and exhibiting right up until his death.
"I think I've something to say to people — that's why," he told the Daily Telegraph in October in his last major interview.
Lauding him as "one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries," his publicist Erica Bolton said he died "peacefully at home" in London on Thursday, a month before his 89th birthday.
"His seven-decade career and prolific oeuvre was characterized by his multi-media approach in image making" as well as "a sustained commitment to celebrating and portraying the world around him," her statement added.
Hockney was acclaimed worldwide.
Britain made him a Companion of Honor in 1997 and earlier this year, he became one of the few non-French citizens to be awarded the highest level of France's main civilian honor, the legion d'honneur.
Expressing his and Queen Camilla's sadness, King Charles III called Hockney "a giant of the world of art... whose irrepressible charm, talent and constant innovation will be most sorely missed."
"David was one of life's true originals; one who wore his genius as lightly as those beloved yellow Crocs of his that helped brighten Palace occasions," Charles added in a heartfelt, personally signed tribute on X.
'Bold'
The king noted that Hockney's "dazzling creativity lives on in galleries and museums around the world."
The Pompidou Center in Paris — which held landmark Hockney exhibitions in 1999 and 2017 — said he was "creative to the end of his life by constantly renewing his ideas."
Born the fourth of five children in 1937 in Bradford, northern England, Hockney defied the conventions of post-war Britain, realizing when he was young that he was gay and wanted to be an artist.
A conscientious objector who did military service as a hospital orderly, he trained at the Bradford School of Art and then at London's Royal College.
"His early work demonstrated a bold stylistic range. And even then he was recognized as a master draughtman and a rising star in British art," the college said in a tribute on Instagram.
He remained "a defining voice in art across his lifetime," it added, praising his "boundless curiosity" and "mastery of color."
Hockney captured everything from carefree 1960s California — to where he moved in 1964 — to the bucolic landscapes of his native Yorkshire, telling The Telegraph he was "happiest when I'm painting."
In 2018, his iconic swimming pool picture, "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" sold for $90.3 million in New York, setting a new auction record for a living artist. He was unseated by Jeff Koons' "Rabbit" a year later.
His portraits were particularly loved.
"I try to get a likeness," he told The Telegraph.
"But in the end, I don't care what the other person thinks of it. It's what I think of it that counts."
A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Hockney "one of Britain's most celebrated artists."
"His vivid, instantly recognizable work influenced generations of artists," she added.
Defiant smoker
Known for experimentation — with print making, photography, and stage design alongside painting and drawing — Hockney embraced modern technology.
He utilized iPads and even worked with developers to create custom-made apps, according to a National Portrait Gallery profile.
He also kept showcasing. London's Serpentine Gallery is currently holding his first exhibition there, featuring new paintings.
"He's just an amazing titan of British art," retiree David Whitehead told AFP on Friday when he visited the gallery.
Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson said the art center would work with the artist's team to realize two projects planned for next year — pointing out its 2017 Hockney exhibition was the most visited in the institution's history.
"David's passing brings to a close an extraordinary body of work characterized by reinvention," Farquharson said.
According to his publicist, he is survived by his long-time partner Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima, two brothers and "numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews."
Hockney always retained his Yorkshire accent and was also a defiantly lifelong smoker, praising the pleasure it brought him.
"He smoked up to the end," Bolton said.
Lockdown interview
Hockney spoke to AFP in 2021 about spending the months of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in France.
They were, he said, a welcome opportunity to devote himself to observing nature.
"I really enjoy looking," he told AFP at the time.
"If you look at the world, it's very beautiful. But you've got to have a clear head and there's lots of things that stop you looking."
Hockney met AFP at the Musee de L'Orangerie in Paris, which was displaying the fruits of that period in an exhibition, "A Year in Normandy."
It featured a 91-meter-long frieze made from some of the 220 pictures he created during the strange year of solitude in 2020.
It is a clear nod to the 19th-century masters of landscape, particularly Claude Monet, occupying some of the neighboring rooms in the museum.
"When the lockdown came I didn't mind at all," said Hockney, resplendent in his trademark round-rimmed glasses and a checked suit.
"We were in an isolated place and I worked every day because there were no visitors. Visitors put me off, get in the way."
All of the drawings were made on an iPad, which had become his preferred way to make art — much more than the photographs that used to be so central to his work.
He talked of how he loved drawing on the iPad, freeing him up from the paraphernalia of regular painting.
"It's a new technique," he said. " don't think there's many people doing it."
'Nature is the source'
The dazzling colors of the Normandy countryside were a perfect fit for Hockney, who made his name with sun-soaked scenes from California in the 1960s.
Though known for his jet-set lifestyle, sartorial elegance and large retinue of friends, he was always an industrious worker.
And he was delighted to have time to devote himself to nature, which he said had become his principal muse.
"The first day we came to Normandy, we watched a marvelous sunset over the Seine estuary. We had the clarity of Van Gogh."
He dismissed the idea that landscapes were no longer an interesting subject for art.
"Nature is the source of everything," he said.
"When I went to Yorkshire 16 years ago, people said 'You can't paint landscape today.' I said 'That's just because of the paintings — the landscape itself can't be boring.'
"The depictions of it have become boring, that's all. You've got to make them a bit different — and that's what I've tried to do."
