David Hockney

From Wikipedia:

David Hockney (9 July 1937 – 11 June 2026) was an English painter, stage designer and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Hockney studied at the Royal College of Art before moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s. The light and lifestyle of California had a profound effect on his work; using acrylic paint he worked on large portrait studies before turning to prints and photocollages in his later career. He used digital applications extensively in the final decades of his career and returned to the Yorkshire landscapes of his childhood with large en plein air pieces. He was also a celebrated operatic stage designer. He exhibited internationally with several important retrospectives at leading institutions and was the recipient of major civic and institutional honours. Hockney came out as gay as a young man several years before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain. He lived between the United Kingdom, France and the United States. In the late 2010s, auction sales established him as the most expensive living artist. […]

David Hockney was a friend and an incredible painter. I knew him during the 1960s and kept a friendship going till he died on Thursday, the 11th of June. He was very clever witty and fun to be with.

His paintings often gave off a feeling of great joy. Nancy and I enjoyed visiting his studios in California where we took a drive along Mulholland Drive which he made famous all over again in his sensational paintings.

Or in his London studio. The rooms were filled with paintings. Often some of the most recent pictures that he had done. He would talk about them and his very particular views on art. He felt that it was important to see correctly. He wasn’t a great fan of perspective and was always involved in inventing new ways to view the world. His many paintings, drawings, films and other media like iPad drawing he took readily to and mastered.

He was a serious Chain Smoker and believed it was everyone’s right to smoke like the days when he and I had been brought up in smoke filled rooms. We visited him once in Bridlington, Yorkshire. He met us at the train station and drove us to his house in a smoke filled car.

We will miss his fabulous personality, his laconic wit and his erudite views on how to look at the world.

Rest in peace, David. We love you. 

Paul McCartney – From Facebook, June 13, 2026