Published: 10:22 AM, 15 June 2026 Last Update: 10:24 AM, 15 June 2026
British artist David Hockney dies aged 88
British artist David Hockney, one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art whose paintings captured the world in brilliant colour, has died aged 88, his publicist announced Friday.
A pioneer in the pop art movement in the 1960s, Hockney established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept painting, 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 characterised by his multi-media approach in image making, an intellectual inquiry into the nature of depiction and perspective, and a sustained commitment to celebrating and portraying the world around him," her statement added.
Acclaimed worldwide, Britain made him a Companion of Honour in 1997. Earlier this year Hockney became one of the few non-French citizens to be awarded France's highest civilian honour, the legion d'honneur.
"His huge achievement was to make serious painting look effortless," art historian Richard Morris said on X.
"He carried forward one of the most sustained investigations into vision, space and representation by any post-war artist. British art has lost a giant."
The famous Pompidou Centre in Paris -- with which he collaborated for two landmark exhibitions in 1999 and 2017 -- said he was "creative to the end of his life by constantly renewing his ideas".
It added that the works he leaves behind remain "dazzling, alive and eternal".
