David Hockney
PAPER POOL, 1980
ithograph in colors, on Arches Cover paper
10 1/2 x 9 in
26.7 x 22.9 cm
Special Proof
Available at VFA
David Hockney died at his home in London, on June 11, at age 88.
He was one of the most beloved, celebrated, prolific and innovate artists the world has known.
Hockney was born in Bradford, England in 1937, one of five siblings. His parents, were the subjects of some of his most iconic paintings.
He was awarded a scholarship to the Bradford School of Art from 1953 through 1957. He then did two years of military service as a conscientious objector and worked as a medical orderly in hospitals from 1957 to 1959. He studied at the Royal College of Art from 1959 to 1962.
Hockney's first sale was Portrait of My Father,1955. It sold at the Leeds Art Gallery for £10.
He received a gold medal of art from the Royal College at graduation, representation at a London gallery and became a rising star in the British art world.
Hockney traveled to New York in 1963. He met Henry Geldzahler, the Met’s newly appointed curator of 20th-century art. Geldzahler become a close friend and helped to enhance Hockney’s career.
In 1964, Hockney discovered California. He felt more acceptance as a gay man, and as a smoker, in California than in London. In 1966, he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and made America his home for many years. The light, and the lifestyle, contributed to some of his most iconic pool paintings.
In 2017, his 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) sold at auction in New York for $90.3million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold by a living artist.
Hockney embraced new technology, like the Polaroid camera and the iPad. He viewed the traditional vanishing point in artworks as unrealistic and boring. He created works like Hotel Acatlan, available at VFA, for his Moving Focus Series, that shifted the viewer’s perspective.
He embraced digital art in his 2025 show Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at the Lightroom in London.
In 2019, Hockney moved to a 17th-century country house in Normandy, where he drew and painted what he saw both inside and outside the house. In 2023, he moved back to London. His paintings of Normandy were shown at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen the following year. A retrospective of nearly 500 works were on view at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris last year.
He was made a Companion of Honour in 1997; in 2012, he was appointed to the Order of Merit. In 2019, Time magazine named David Hockney one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
David Hockney is survived by his partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, and two of his brothers, Philip and John.
Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of David Hockney available at VFA.
References:
Eddy Frankel. ‘Hyper-stylised, ultra-cool visions’: 10 ways David Hockney changed art. The Guardian. June 13, 2026.
Charles Darwin. David Hockney obituary. The Guardian. June 12, 2026.
Holland Cotter. David Hockney, Who Restored the Human Form to Art, Dies at 88. The New York Times. June 12, 2026.Lisa Yin Zhang. Painter David Hockney, Who Made the Everyday Otherworldly, Dies at 88. Hyperallergic. June 12, 2026.
