Overview
- His publicist, Erica Bolton of Bolton & Quinn, confirmed late Friday that Hockney died peacefully at his London home on Thursday, June 11, and named his partner Jean‑Pierre Gonçalves de Lima and two brothers among his survivors.
- Hockney’s seven‑decade career reshaped contemporary painting through his Pop Art rise in the 1960s, iconic California pool pictures and a continual habit of reinvention that made him one of the century’s most influential artists.
- His 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) set a market benchmark when it sold for $90.3 million at Christie’s in 2018 and his work remains central to major museum collections and blockbuster exhibitions.
- Late‑life experimentation defined his practice as much as his early work—Hockney used Polaroid collages, stage design and early computer graphics and embraced iPad drawing and immersive digital projects while continuing to produce work after a 2012 stroke.
- Museums and public figures have issued tributes, Serpentine is showing work conceived with Hockney, and Tate Britain, Tate Modern and other institutions are coordinating how to complete planned shows and steward his archive and projects.