London. | AFP. British artist David Hockney died on Thursday, his spokesman announced on Friday. He was 88 years old.
Hockney pioneered the pop art movement of the 1960s and became a world-renowned painter and master draftsman. He continued to paint, experiment and exhibit his work until his death.
“I think I have something to say to people – that’s why,” he told the Daily Telegraph last October, in his last major interview.
His spokesman, Erica Bolton, said he had been “one of the most important contemporary artists of both the 20th and 21st centuries”, adding that he had died slowly at his London home on Thursday, a month before his 89th birthday.
“His seven-decade career and prolific life’s work were characterized by his diverse approach to image-making, his intellectual exploration of the nature of representation and perspective, and his constant effort to pay tribute to and depict the world around him,” she added in her statement.
He was world-renowned and the British made him a Companion of Honor in 1997. Earlier this year, Hockney became one of the few foreign nationals to receive France’s highest civilian honour, the Légion d’honneur.
“His crowning achievement was to make serious painting look effortless,” said art critic Richard Morris at X.
“He produced one of the most comprehensive studies of vision, space and representation by any post-war artist. A giant has disappeared from the British art world.”
A statement from the Pompidou Museum in Paris – with which he collaborated on two landmark exhibitions in 1999 and 2017 – said he had been “creative until the end of his life, constantly renewing his ideas”. It added that the works he leaves behind are “wonderful, living and eternal”.
Elizabeth II. Hockney is honored by the Queen at Buckingham Palace in London in 2012.
AFP/Steve Parsons
“The Daredevil”
Hockney was born in 1937 in Bradford, Northern England, the fourth of five siblings. He realized early on that he was gay, which was not accepted in post-war Britain, and wanted to become an artist.
He did military service for reasons of conscience as a paramedic in a hospital. He studied at the Bradford School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art in London, where he graduated with honours.
“His early works showed a boldness and breadth of style and by then he was already recognized as a master draftsman and a rising star in British art,” the school said in a tribute on Instagram. Throughout his career, his voice in art would have been a guiding principle, and he deserves praise for his “boundless curiosity, mastery of color and the adoption of new techniques.”
Hockney was one of the most influential talents of a new generation of British artists, capturing everything from the carefree California of the 1960s – where he moved in 1964 – to the idyllic landscapes of the Yorkshire countryside.
“I’m happiest when I’m painting,” he told the Telegraph.
In 2018, his famous pool painting, “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. Jeff Koons broke the record with the work “Rabbit” a year later.
His portraits are especially popular
“I try to get parallels,” he told the Telegraph. “But at the end of the day, I don’t care what the other person thinks about it, it’s what I think that matters.”
Known for his experimentation – with printmaking, photography and set design as well as painting and drawing – he embraced modern technology as it emerged.
He used iPad tablets after they came out and even worked with developers to create custom apps, according to a biography from the National Portrait Gallery.
The painting “Skvettan” (The Splash) from 1966 is one of Hockney’s most famous pictures.
Christie’s
A heavy smoker
Hockney also continued to stage exhibitions.
His first exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London is currently underway. It was designed in close collaboration with the artist and you can see new paintings by him there.
Exhibitions at the Tate in London and the Munch Museum in Oslo were being prepared.
Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, said the museum would work with the artist’s team to implement two projects planned for next year – noting that the Hockney exhibition in 2017 had been the most attended in the institution’s history.
Projects include the Tate re-showing his work from seven decades ago and Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall a multimedia installation of his famous designs for opera sets.
“David’s passing brings to an end an extraordinary life’s work marked by renewal,” said Farquharson.
“He touched so many with his striking talent, his love of art and life, and his profound and unconventional insights. His work continues to influence our culture, far beyond the art world.”
According to his spokesman, he is survived by his longtime partner Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima, two brothers and “numerous aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.”
Hockney always kept his Yorkshire accent and was also a lifelong smoker, praising the pleasure it gave him, according to a spokesman’s statement. “He smoked until the end,” it said.
