David Hockney, one of Britain's most celebrated and influential artists, has died at the age of 88. Hockney's extensive body of work offered a vibrant and often revolutionary perspective on the contemporary world, marked by an uninhibited visual pleasure and a deep fascination with new ways of creating art. His distinctive style, often described as putting the 'fun' into pop art, allowed him to capture the essence of modern life with an acceptance rarely seen before, drawing parallels to how The Beatles defined the sound of their era.
Hockney's deep affection for Los Angeles was a defining characteristic of his artistic output. While many might have viewed the Californian metropolis with cynicism, Hockney saw it as a landscape of freedom and boundless possibility under an expansive blue sky. His iconic depictions of low-lying houses, towering palm trees, and the distinctive splash of a diver in a pool, particularly in works like 'A Bigger Splash', cemented his reputation as a 'Matisse of pop art', celebrating hedonism and a relaxed way of life.
Emerging from a childhood in industrial Bradford, Hockney's early work, created during his time at the Royal College of Art in London, displayed a refreshing lack of nostalgia or snobbery. Unlike many of his pop art contemporaries, who often critiqued burgeoning consumer society, Hockney embraced modern life not through irony or ideology, but simply because it was his reality. From everyday objects like desk lamps to scenes of dancing and showering, he depicted the lives of his generation with honesty and directness.
Hockney's openness about his sexuality was another subtle yet powerful aspect of his art, especially significant in an era when homosexuality was illegal in early 1960s Britain. His relaxed and untroubled portrayal of gay life, from early works like 'Doll Boy' expressing his admiration for Cliff Richard, to later portraits of figures like Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, was quietly subversive. He sought to find the right artistic style to truthfully represent gay experiences, making it simply a part of the truth he lived and painted, rather than a political statement.
Despite his engagement with the vibrant, evolving world he found in London and later California, Hockney was also a keen observer. His early trips to the US in 1961 were chronicled in a series of prints, reminiscent of William Hogarth's 'The Rake's Progress', where Hockney himself appeared as the 'Rake', simultaneously enthralled and bewildered by America. This observational quality deepened over the years, leading to an eerie stillness in his later paintings, most notably in 'Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)', which sold for a remarkable $90.3 million in 2018. This 1972 canvas, depicting a young man by a pool watching a swimmer, is imbued with a quiet intensity, capturing the loneliness inherent in observation, even amidst the visual delight of his signature sun-drenched landscapes.