Goodbye to David Hockney, visionary of pop art between brush and pixels

Addition aDavid Hockney.  The great master of pop artdied aged 88 at his home in London. “I did everything I wanted to do. I regret nothing”, is the mantra of his life. The thick, blond tuft (over the years it becamewhite), and the cigarette always on they were the stamp of an unmistakable artist.

Hockney’s works

The looklight blue behind the mount ofround glasses he photographed that for over half a centuryworld of colors of which he was the artistic father. Seventy years of works. The landscapes of his Yorkshire or of California. Le transparent swimming poolsclear skies and portraits.Hockney he was also one of the protagonists of the cultural scene between London and the United States alongside Andy Warhol o Dennis Hopper.

In 2018 Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) it was sold at Christie’s for 90.3 million dollars. An absolute record, at the time, for an artist still alive.

Hockney between brush and pixel

Brush in a hand and pixels on the screen. Pioneer of technology grafted into contemporary art Hockney transformed theiPad in a color palette thanks to the “Brushes” application.

The announcement of Hockney’s death

David Hockney“passed away peacefully at his home on June 11, 2026, one month before his 89th birthday,” Erica Bolton, head of the agency that represented him, said in a statement.

From the Swinging London to the sunny swimming pools of Los AngelesDavid Hockney was one of the most recognizable and influential British artists of the late twentieth century. Born in Bradford in 1937 into a working-class and radical family, the fourth of five children, Hockney early showed uncommon talent. He studied at the Bradford College of Art and then at the Royal College of Art in London, where he immediately established himself as a rebellious and original figure.

The season of pop art

His name remains linked to the season of pop art and to works like ‘A Bigger Splash‘ and ‘Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures)’, paintings that helped define the visual imagery of California: clear skies, swimming pools, bodies, desire, melancholy. But reducing Hockney to just one season would be misleading. In over sixty years of career he has spanned painting, photography, collage, scenography, landscape, portrait and digital experimentation.

The challenge to conventions

Since the 1960s, Hockney openly challenged social and artistic conventions. Works like ‘We Two Boys Together Clinging‘, inspired by Walt Whitman, brought homosexual experience to canvas with a rare frankness in a Britain where homosexuality remained a crime until 1967. With platinum blonde hair, round glasses and an always lit cigarette, he also became a figure on the cultural scene between London and the United States, close to Andy Warhol, Ossie Clark and Dennis Hopper.

The turning point in Los Angeles

The move to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s marked a decisive turning point. Here Hockney developed a more mature and controlled style, capable of transforming seemingly cold and bright scenes into tales of love, loss and loneliness. In 2018 Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) sold at Christie’s for $90.3 million, at the time a world record for a living artist.

Experiments and innovation

His search never stopped. With the “joiners”, photographic collages composed of several Polaroid shots, Hockney investigated the theme of perspective, ideally dialoguing with Picasso and cubism. Later he experimented with faxes, photocopiers, printers, iPads and 3D technologies, interested in every tool capable of “making an image”. “I’m interested in everything that produces a figure,” he explained in 2013.

An iconoclastic artist

An iconoclast even outside the studio, he refused the title of knight several times and declined the invitation to portray the queen. In the book Secret Knowledge he questioned many certainties about the techniques of the ancient masters, dividing critics and art historians. Despite bereavements, controversies and health problems, Hockney continued to work with an almost obstinate discipline. “Teaching how to draw means teaching how to look,” he said in 2018. The key to his legacy is in these words and in the desire to represent both the contemporary world and the way of observing it in a new way.