David Hockney Dies at 88: Legendary British Artist and Pop Art Icon

David Hockney, one of Britain’s most celebrated and influential artists, has died at the age of 88. His death was first reported in the French press and later confirmed by his publicist in a statement to the BBC and the London Evening Standard. The statement said Hockney “passed away peacefully at home on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday.”

Hockney was born in Yorkshire, England, and studied at Bradford College of Art before attending the Royal College of Art in London, where he studied alongside artists including Frank Bowling and R. B. Kitaj. He graduated with a Gold Medal and quickly emerged as one of the most important young British artists of his generation. His early success helped establish him as a leading figure in contemporary art.

In 1964, Hockney moved from London to Los Angeles, a move that transformed both his life and his work. There, he began painting scenes of Southern California, especially its pools, sunlight and domestic spaces. This period produced some of his most famous images, including The Splash and Pool with Two Figures, works that became defining symbols of his style and vision. His pool paintings remain among the best-known images in modern art.

Hockney’s painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) was sold at Christie’s in New York in 2018 for $90 million, making it the most expensive work by a living artist ever sold at auction at the time. The record was later surpassed in 2019 by Jeff Koons’s Rabbit, which sold for more than $91 million. At the time of the sale, Hockney responded with characteristic simplicity, saying: “Paint the things you love.”

Over the course of a long and varied career, Hockney worked across painting, opera, theatre, film and photography. His willingness to experiment across disciplines made him one of the most versatile and recognizable artists of the modern era. He consistently pushed the boundaries of how art could be made and experienced, while remaining deeply committed to color, observation and the everyday world around him.

In later years, Hockney became known for his digital artworks created on an iPad, showing that his creative curiosity continued well into old age. A selection of those works is currently on display at London’s Serpentine Gallery, with a handwritten tagline from Hockney reading: “Put Your Phone Down, Look with Both Eyes.”

Hockney had returned to London in 2023 after years living in the United States and France. He was recently honored as an Officier in France’s Légion d’Honneur, and Tate Britain is due to host a major survey of his work next year. His death marks the loss of a towering figure whose art helped shape the visual language of the 20th and 21st centuries.