Groundbreaking British artist David Hockney is being remembered as a courageous and inventive giant of the art world after his death at age 88.
Hockney, who rose to prominence as a pop artist in the 1960s, died a few weeks before his 89th birthday, his publicist announced.
The artist came out as gay at age 23, seven years before homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967.
His early works, including We Two Boys Together Clinging and Two Men in a Shower, celebrated gay relationships at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain.
For his works depicting queer sexuality and desire, Hockney enlisted male friends and lovers to pose as models, as well as the men he saw in bodybuilding magazines.
He famously described those works as “homosexual propaganda,” acknowledging how deliberately visible and political the pieces were.
“What one must remember about some of these pictures is that they were partly propaganda of something that hadn’t been propagandised, especially among students, as a subject: homosexuality,” he said.
“I felt it should be done. Nobody else would use it as a subject because it was a part of me.”
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‘Extraordinary body of work characterised by reinvention’
David Hockney moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s and over his varied six-decade career, his sun-drenched paintings of pools created in California became a trademark.
In 2018, his 1972 work Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) (pictured above) sold for $AU128m at Christie’s, a record for a living artist at the time.
Director of London’s Tate Britain gallery, Alex Farquharson, described Hockney as an “immensely important figure” in the art world.
“David was an endlessly inventive artist, with a unique vision of the world,” Farquharson said.
“He was always completely and courageously himself, both in his work and in life.
“He taught us about the joy of looking, seeing things the rest of us failed to notice – his witty and sharp observations a constant presence within his work and in person.
“The loss to the art world is immense: David’s passing brings to a close an extraordinary body of work characterised by reinvention.”
David Hockney moved back to the UK in 2023. He is survived by his long-time partner, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, who was by his side when he died.
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