David Hockney passed away yesterday, 11 June 2026, at home, one month short of his 89th birthday. Born in Bradford on 9 July 1937, into a working-class Yorkshire family, he spent his entire life following a single rule: paint the things you love. That rule earned him an extraordinary career, the recognition of both the public and the critics, and a permanent place in the history of contemporary art.

Hockney was a genius in practically every medium: painting, photography, etching, lithography, stained glass, theatre design, and in his later years even the iPad, which he embraced with the enthusiasm of someone who had just discovered a new toy. His style was unmistakable: saturated colours, Californian light, an apparent simplicity that concealed absolute mastery of composition.

In the 1960s he was launched into the pantheon of contemporary art. The Los Angeles swimming pools, the portraits of friends and lovers, the Yorkshire landscapes he returned to love in later life: every series was an act of love towards its subject. In 2018, one of his swimming pool paintings sold at auction for nearly £70 million, a record for a living artist. Hockney was surprised by the enthusiasm: he had simply painted what he loved.

He turned down a knighthood in 1990. He accepted the Order of Merit, convinced it was a personal gift from Queen Elizabeth II and that it would have been ungracious to decline. The art world loses not only the most expensive living contemporary artist, but someone who taught us to look at colour through a deeply personal and revolutionary lens.