British artist David Hockney dies at 88
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British artist David Hockney, considered one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art, died at his home, his publicist said.
PHOTO: AFP
LONDON – British artist David Hockney, considered one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art, whose paintings captured the world in brilliant colour, has died at age 88, his publicist announced on June 12.
Describing Hockney as “one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries”, Erica Bolton said that he had “passed away peacefully at home” in London on June 11, a month before his 89th birthday.
“His seven-decade career and prolific oeuvre were characterised by his multimedia approach in image-making, an intellectual inquiry into the nature of depiction and perspective, and a sustained commitment to celebrating and portraying the world around him,” the agent’s statement added.
It noted he is survived by his long-time partner and companion, Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima, two brothers and “numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews”.
One of the leading artists involved in the Pop art movement in the 1960s, Hockney was globally renowned as a painter and master draughtsman and kept painting, experimenting and exhibiting his acclaimed work right up until his death.
An audio-visual exhibition spanning six decades of Hockney’s works is showing at the IMBA Theatre at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore from Feb 13 to Aug 31. Tickets for the exhibition – David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) – are priced between $32 and $47 for adults.
London’s Serpentine Gallery is currently holding his first exhibition there, which was conceived in close collaboration with the artist and showcases new paintings by him.
Future exhibitions at Tate, London and the Munch Museum in Oslo were in development.
Keen smoker
He was lauded globally, with Britain bestowing the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1997, while in 2026, Hockney became one of the few non-French citizens to be awarded the rank of Officier in France’s prestigious Legion d’Honneur.
Born in 1937 in West Yorkshire, northern England, Hockney trained at the Bradford School of Art in the region and then at London’s Royal College, from which he graduated with a Gold Medal distinction.
He would soon emerge as one of the seminal talents in the new generation of British artists, capturing everything from carefree 1960s California – where he moved to in 1964 – to the bucolic landscapes of his native Yorkshire.
In 2018, his iconic swimming pool picture, Portrait Of An Artist (Pool With Two Figures) sold for US$90.3 million (S$116 million) in New York, setting a new auction record for a living artist. He was unseated by Jeff Koons’ Rabbit a year later.
Hockney always retained his Yorkshire burr and was also a committed lifelong and defiant smoker, praising the pleasure it brought him in life, his publicist’s statement noted.
“He smoked up to the end,” it said. AFP
