David Hockney, the English painter who fell in love with the swimming pools of Los Angeles, has died
At the age of 88, he was one of the most iconic figures in contemporary art. Born in Yorkshire, he had studied in London. He then went on to achieve success in the US
The British artist David Hockney, whose paintings of glistening swimming pools under the Los Angeles sun have become icons of 20th-century art, has died at his home in London at the age of 88, according to his press office.
He was born in the north of England, but spent most of his life in Southern California, making its sun-drenched suburban landscapes a recurring theme. In his later years, he returned to Europe, finding new inspiration in the wooded hills of his native Yorkshire and in the fields and trees of Normandy, France. He has become one of the UK’s most beloved artists, with his works selling for record prices at auction.
The historian Simon Schama has stated that ‘the popularity and longevity of David Hockney’s art, despite all his stylistic shifts and his tireless creative experimentation, are by no means a mystery. His work is admired — and ‘loved’ is not too strong a word — by millions of people who, all over the world, flock to see it because it promises a sense of pleasure”.
Hockney’s spokesperson, Erica Bolton, has announced that the artist, “one of the most important figures in contemporary art of the 20th and 21st centuries”, has passed away just a few weeks before his 89th birthday.
With his distinctive round glasses and platinum-blonde hair, Hockney was a leading figure in the vibrant British and American art scenes of the 1960s, even before he turned 30. His paintings were equally distinctive: many of them created a dreamlike world of light playing on water and windows, and human figures rendered in flattened, simplified forms, painted in matt acrylic. ‘I’m excited every day,’ he told the Los Angeles Times in 1979. ‘London has many gloomy areas, but I never find anything gloomy in Los Angeles.’
