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By Matthew Robinson and Marni Rose McFall
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The British artist David Hockney has been remembered as the "Picasso of our times" following his death at the age of 88.
"The celebrated British artist David Hockney, one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries, passed away peacefully at home on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday," a statement from Hockney's publicist said.
"David Hockney's enduring legacy reflects his underlying enthusiasm for life, his outstanding sense of humor, his immense generosity, and his investigative curiosity encapsulated by his signature phrase, Love Life." No cause of death was immediately disclosed.
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Hockney was regarded as one of Britain's greatest living artists, and was perhaps best known for his 1967 painting A Bigger Splash depicting a swimming pool in California.
Hockey suffered a minor stroke in 2012 and was increasingly deaf towards the end of his life, but never stopped working.
"It's my work that keeps me young," he told The Sun newspaper in 2017. "I've been a professional painter for 60 years. Sixty years of getting up every day and doing exactly what I want to do."
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What To Know
Born in Bradford, England, in 1937, Hockney emerged from the fringes of the Pop Art scene in the 1960s, before finding international fame after moving to Los Angeles.
The city's bright sunlight, modern architecture and swimming pools became recurring subjects in some of his most celebrated works, including Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures).
Over more than six decades, he worked across painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, stage design and digital media, often challenging conventional ideas about perspective and visual representation.
Art critics frequently described Hockney as a restless innovator. He experimented with photographic collages in the 1980s, later embraced fax machines and computer graphics, and became one of the first major artists to use iPhones and iPads as serious artistic tools.
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Hockney was also a pioneering cultural figure. Openly gay at a time when homosexuality remained illegal in Britain, he incorporated same-sex relationships and homoerotic themes into his art, helping push boundaries in both the art world and wider society. Early works including We Two Boys Together Clinging and Two Men in a Shower celebrated gay relationships.
Later in life, Hockney returned to Europe and found inspiration in the hills of his native county of Yorkshire and the trees of France's Normandy region.
Hockney took inspiration from the British countryside to design a stained-glass window at Westminster Abbey in London to celebrate the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The window, which was completed in 2018, depicts blossoming hawthorn trees in hues of blue, green, yellow, orange, pink and red.
Historian Simon Schama wrote in an essay accompanying a 2025 exhibition in Paris: "the popularity and durability of David Hockney's art, through all his shape-shifts and restlessly inventive experiments, are really no mystery.
“His work is admired — loved is not too strong a word — by the millions who, worldwide, flock to see it because it presupposes an expectation of pleasure."
Norman Rosenthal, who helped curate the Paris exhibition, called Hockney "the Picasso of our times."
"When I say that, people laugh at me, as Picasso was the archetypal artist of the 20th century," he told The Independent newspaper. "But David Hockney is also an incredibly popular artist whose work changes how we see things."
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How Much Did Hockney's Artworks Sell For?
Hockney's artworks fetched record-breaking sums throughout his career. In 2018, his 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90.3 million at Christie's auction house, which was a record at the time for a living artists.
In February 2020, another one of his California pool paintings, The Splash, sold at Sotheby's for £23.1 million ($30 million).
Speaking to The Associated Press in 1995, he said: "The moment I first sold pictures to earn a living, I felt rich. I've been rich ever since.
"I didn't have much money but I did what I wanted... You are a rich man if you do the things you want to do."
Tanya Baxter, founder of Tanya Baxter Contemporary Gallery & Art Advisory in London, told Newsweek: "Hockney's prices had been steadily increasing over the last five years with his auction record of $90 million for Portrait of an Artist. The supply had become sparse so we expect an increase according to demand. It is also dependent on museum retrospectives activity in the next year or so and collectors who were waiting for pending auctions and Art Basel."
Tributes To Hockney
London Mayor Sadiq Khan described Hockney as a "true icon" and a "revolutionary of British art." He added on X: "From his training at the Royal College of Art in the early 60s to blockbuster London retrospectives, David Hockney has inspired millions."
Alex Farquharson, the director of the museum Tate Britain, described Hockney as an "immensely important figure" who was "widely regarded as one of the most successful and recognizable artists of our time."
Simon Hester, the owner of Hester Gallery in Leeds, told Newsweek that Hockney was a "genius and had such a huge impact on modern art."
"I'm sure that his passing will very quickly result in an increase in the value of all his works that are available. He enjoyed creating original etchings and prints throughout his career which are highly collectible and is the work we particularly specialize in. We are already getting a lot of new enquiries," he said.
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