David Hockney, the Bradford-born painter whose sun-drenched California canvases and unflinching portraits made him one of the defining artists of the modern era, has died aged 88, The Guardian reported Thursday.
Hockney first gained wide attention in the early 1960s after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London. He relocated to Los Angeles, where he produced the swimming pool paintings that became his signature — among them A Bigger Splash, completed in 1967, now held by Tate Modern.
His output was relentless and restless. He moved between oil paint, acrylic, printmaking, photo collage, and, in later years, iPad drawing — staging a landmark exhibition of digital works at the Royal Academy in 2012 that drew record crowds.
Major retrospectives at Tate Britain and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York confirmed his standing as a figure of the first rank. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 2012 and declined a knighthood more than once.
Hockney spent his final years dividing his time between Normandy, France, and the East Yorkshire landscape he had returned to paint in the 2000s, producing large-scale studies of the Wolds across the seasons.
A full statement from his estate is expected in the coming days.