David Hockney (1937–2026) was one of the most important figures in contemporary art of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A Bradford-born painter, draughtsman, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer, his career of nearly seven decades encompassed some of the most significant bodies of work in the history of post-war art. He is said to have worked up until his death, painting from his wheelchair in his studio in London for about three hours a day. His signature phrase was simple and absolute: Love Life.
He studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where he featured alongside Peter Blake in the Young Contemporaries exhibition of 1961 — a show subsequently described as announcing the arrival of British Pop Art. His move to Los Angeles in 1964 produced the swimming pool paintings that remain among the most recognisable and sought-after works in his catalogue, their saturated California light and compositional clarity capturing a specific quality of place and moment with a precision that has made them genuinely iconic.
His practice was defined by restless formal curiosity — portraits of friends, lovers, and family; fairy tale illustrations; seasonal landscapes of his native Yorkshire; Cubist-influenced multi-panel photographic works he called joiners; and, in his final years, iPad drawings that applied the logic of his entire career to an entirely new medium. The Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold at Christie's New York in November 2018 for $90 million — a record for a living artist at the time.
Major retrospectives at the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Royal Academy (2012), Tate Britain (2017, subsequently travelling to Paris and New York), and the National Portrait Gallery (2020) confirmed his canonical status across successive generations of critics and collectors. The Tate's 2017 Hockney exhibition was the most visited in Tate Britain's history.
The Older Rapunzel etching from his 1969 Brothers Grimm suite — available through Creed Gallery — is among the most quietly accomplished works in his graphic output: economy of line, psychological precision, and the formal confidence of someone who had been drawing seriously for decades. Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London. Private viewings by appointment.
