David Hockney Has Died at 88 - Share Your Favourite Work

[Cheugy89]

David Hockney died at his home in London on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday. King Charles called him a giant of the world of art and painting, a Yorkshireman through and through. Tracey Emin said he changed the perception of Britishness with the power of art. Grayson Perry observed that when Hockney returned from California he transformed into a sort of poet of the spring. Over seven decades he produced swimming pool paintings, Yorkshire landscapes, Los Angeles portraits, iPad drawings, and stage design work that spanned an entire era of British art.

Hockney was unusual in the art world for being genuinely popular without sacrificing seriousness. His work was in major galleries and on student posters simultaneously. He embraced every new medium that came along, from photography to the Xerox machine to the iPhone and iPad, not as a gimmick but as a genuine continuation of his interest in how we see. Bradford has been paying tribute to their most famous son. The Tate and every major British gallery that holds his work is preparing responses. His estate has said he died peacefully.

What is your favourite Hockney work or period and what did his career mean to you?

Celebrated British artist David Hockney dies aged 88www.bbc.co.uk

[Forge89]

A Bigger Splash is the obvious answer and I make no apology for it. The frozen moment of the water, the absence of the diver, the stillness around the splash. It is one of the greatest paintings of the 20th century and it has not dimmed with familiarity

[NorthernKernel]

The Yorkshire paintings from the 2000s are underrated relative to the California work. The way he used colour to describe an English landscape that most painters make look grey and melancholy is extraordinary

[Tracey]

I have always loved the double portraits. Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy has a psychological tension that you feel before you can explain it. The cat in Ossie's lap, the open window, the slight distance between the subjects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QqPXKg0t8E

[Joanne_24]

The iPad drawings he made during the pandemic lockdowns were remarkable for someone in his late eighties. The enthusiasm for a new tool, the willingness to explore, the sheer productivity. An inspiration on that level alone

[DiamondDallas_X]

Bradford not having a permanent Hockney gallery is a civic failure that his death is going to make obvious. The connection between his work and his origins is one of the great British art stories

[Candle]

My tributes to DH

[Amber84]

His influence on how we think about representation of the gay experience in British art is enormous and undersaid in the mainstream coverage. He was openly gay throughout his career at a time when that had real personal costs

[ParallelSelf34]

The Pearlblossom Highway photomontage is the work I keep returning to. The way it challenges how photography represents space and time feels entirely contemporary even though it was made in the 1980s

[IronFist66]

He was simply one of the great colourists in the history of painting. Put him next to Matisse and you understand what British art was capable of in the second half of the 20th century