David Hockney, the iconic British painter who cast a revolutionary gaze across 20th-century art, has died aged 88. The Bradford-born artist passed away peacefully at home on 11 June 2026, one month short of his 89th birthday, his representatives announced.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was among the first to pay tribute, saying he was “saddened” to hear of the death of “one of Britain’s most celebrated artists”. A Downing Street spokesman added: “His vivid, instantly recognisable work influenced generations of artists.”
“David Hockney, one of Britain's most celebrated artists, has died peacefully at home aged 88.”
Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, described Hockney as an “immensely important figure” and “an endlessly inventive artist, with a unique vision of the world”. He said: “He taught us about the joy of looking, seeing things the rest of us failed to notice.”
Hockney made his name as a pop artist during the swinging 60s and was perhaps best known for his sun-drenched swimming pool paintings that defined the Los Angeles aesthetic. Works such as A Bigger Splash (1967) and Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) – which sold for $90 million (£70 million) at auction in 2018, obliterating the record for a living artist – depicted hedonistic scenes of love, lust and loss. But his six-decade career spanned photo-collages, abstract landscapes, opera set designs, and later, iPad drawings. During the pandemic, he withdrew to a remote farmhouse in Normandy, where he created a series of 130 iPad paintings titled A Year in Normandie, currently showing at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
His representatives said his “enduring legacy reflects his underlying enthusiasm for life, his outstanding sense of humour, his immense generosity, and his investigative curiosity encapsulated by his signature phrase: Love Life.” Details of memorials will follow in due course.
The Pompidou Centre in Paris, which staged two landmark exhibitions, called him “unquestionably one of the major figures of contemporary art”, adding that his works remain “dazzling, alive and eternal”.
The Tate said it will continue to work with Hockney’s team on two planned projects next year: a major exhibition at Tate Britain spanning seven decades of his work, and a multimedia installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall bringing his opera set designs to life. The Tate’s 2017 Hockney exhibition was the most visited in its history.