David Hockney, Who Urged the World to “Love Life,” Dies at 88

David Hockney has always been a looming presence. The last Pop Artist. Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from 1972 sold for a record-breaking sum of $90.3 at Christie’s in 2018, which perhaps explains why the Los Angeles art scene remains brimming with swimming pool imagery to this day. A boy from porridge colored Bradford, West Yorkshire, had made Los Angeles rediscover the beauty of its own landscape and culture.

I first encountered Hockney’s work while meeting a collector at a London club called George. This was the first club in London where visitors were encouraged to bring their canine companions. The Mayfair club was far from my usual haunts, so I was surprised to discover that almost the entire venue was filled with Hockney’s artworks, several featuring dogs.

From that moment on, Hockney seemed to reappear in my life as a series of delightful surprises. Whether it was an exhibition of his improbable and inventive photocollages, which he called Drawings with Camera, his illustrations for Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1970, Petersburg Press), or his analysis of the vanishing points in the 3D effects of the Avatar films and how they relate to the sense of depth and perception within his own gargantuan paintings of the Grand Canyon from 1998, I welcomed each encounter with open arms and eyes. His work struck me as both extremely personal and omnipresent.

His high-low approach to art, combined with an extraordinary sense of humor, curiosity, and observation, created a rare kind of joy. I also admired his expansive approach to art making. If he were going to paint his beloved dachshund, it would be forty-five different versions of them; if he were going to paint a landscape, it might as well wrap around the entire gallery. Think bigger, the work whispers, never stop. He possessed the remarkable ability to make the everyday appear magical, and to remind us that seeing the world is, in itself, a form of pleasure.

Dressed like a glamorous yet slightly disheveled harlequin, with caricature-like round glasses and never without a cigarette, he spoke openly and unapologetically about his sexuality from 1962 onward. Hockney was not only an artist but a cultural force.

This was especially significant during Margaret Thatcher’s government’s attempt to erase queer voices through legislation, specifically Section 28 in 1988. Hockney was furious at this effort, which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools under the infamous “don’t say gay” rhetoric. In protest, he even threatened to withdraw his work from a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London.

Picking up the iPad at the age of 71 in 2009 and making the most out of the Brushes software program is perhaps the best promotion of an artist looking to the digital age I have encountered. His last show at the Serpentine, London, up until the 23rd of August, 2026, features insightful digital landscapes around his home in Normandy. It is a celebration of nature and how a great artist’s eye can digest it and present the image through the digital prism. Please go see it and be dazzled by how an 88-year-old artist can challenge and move us all forward.

Hockney died on 11 June 2026. He has spent 70 years making art and ‘looking at things with intensity.’ In April 2020, he wrote in a letter to his friend, the director Ruth Mackenzie: “I’m 82, I’m going to die. We die because we are born. The only things that matter in life are food and love, in that order, and also our little dog Ruby. I truly believe this, and for me, the basis of art is love. I love life.”

These words hold the key to understanding Hockney. He looked, ate, drew, painted, and photographed the world because he loved it, and through his eyes he taught us how to love it more deeply. His work was a lifelong celebration of the act of seeing, a reminder that attention itself could be an expression of affection.

David signed all of his letters, Love Life.

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