Contents
David Hockney
Painting vivid California swimming pools and exploring new ways of seeing through photography and digital drawing.
A Bigger Splash · Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy
- Born
- 9 July 1937
- Birthplace
- Bradford, United Kingdom
- Died
- 11 June 2026
More people
David Hockney
British artist whose portraits, landscapes and experiments with perspective spanned painting, printmaking and screens.
Early life
Bradford childhood
Grew up in a large family and trained at Bradford College of Art.
London training
Studied at the Royal College of Art, emerging alongside a new generation of British artists.
Career
- 1960s
California
Moved to Los Angeles and developed his celebrated swimming-pool paintings.
- 1980s–2000s
Changing viewpoints
Made photographic collages and returned to large Yorkshire landscapes.
- 2010s–2026
Digital experiments
Used iPads and other tools to draw changing seasons and familiar surroundings.
Selected work
A Bigger Splash
A quiet pool scene interrupted by a burst of white water.
Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy
A double portrait balancing intimacy and distance.
Bigger Trees Near Warter
A Yorkshire landscape assembled from fifty canvases.
Beyond painting
Openly gay
Made same-sex relationships visible in his art when homosexuality was still criminalized in Britain.
Stage design
Created sets for opera as well as paintings and drawings.
Sources & photo credit
Biography and references ↗Biography and contributions ↗A Bigger Splash — Tate ↗Photo: United Press International. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
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