British artist David Hockney, one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art whose paintings captured the world in brilliant color, has died aged 88.
Tributes poured in for the 1960s pop art pioneer who established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept experimenting and exhibiting right up until his death.
“I think I’ve something to say to people, that’s why,” he told the Daily Telegraph in October in his last major interview.
Lauding him as “one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries,” his publicist Erica Bolton said he died “peacefully at home” in London on Thursday, a month before his 89th birthday.
“His seven-decade career and prolific oeuvre was characterized by his multi-media approach in image making” as well as “a sustained commitment to celebrating and portraying the world around him,” her statement added.
Hockney was acclaimed worldwide.
Britain made him a Companion of Honor in 1997 and earlier this year, he became one of the few non-French citizens to be awarded the highest level of France’s main civilian honor, the legion d’honneur. Expressing his and Queen Camilla’s sadness, King Charles III called Hockney “a giant of the world of art... whose irrepressible charm, talent and constant innovation will be most sorely missed.”
“David was one of life’s true originals; one who wore his genius as lightly as those beloved yellow Crocs of his that helped brighten Palace occasions,” Charles added in a heartfelt, personally signed tribute on X.
The king noted that Hockney’s “dazzling creativity lives on in galleries and museums around the world.”
The Pompidou Centre in Paris, which held landmark Hockney exhibitions in 1999 and 2017, said he was “creative to the end of his life by constantly renewing his ideas.”
Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson said the art centre would work with the artist’s team to realize two projects planned for next year — pointing out its 2017 Hockney exhibition was the most visited in the institution’s history.
“David’s passing brings to a close an extraordinary body of work characterized by reinvention,” Farquharson said.
According to his publicist, he is survived by his long-time partner Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima, two brothers and “numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.”
