David Hockney (1937–2026) became known as a central figure of British art in the 1960s and is widely celebrated as one of the most influential artists of our time.
Born in Bradford in 1937, he graduated from the Bradford School of Art in 1957 and studied at the Royal College of Art from 1959–62. Alongside his prodigious painting and drawing practice, he constantly explored new technological possibilities in making art. In the 1980s he embraced Polaroid film, photocopying and faxing and, later, digital media including Photoshop and his iPad and iPhone as new means of conceiving and creating mesmerising multiple view and composite images. He continued to make new work in all media until the end of his life, with an unwavering desire to challenge conventions of perspective in art and how we truly ‘see’.
Hockney exhibited widely at major international museums and galleries throughout his career. Most recently, David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2026. Other recent exhibitions include a retrospective at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2025), Drawing From Life at the National Portrait Gallery, London (2023-4) and The Arrival of Spring, Normandy 2020 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2021). Earlier landmark exhibitions include Hockney – Van Gogh, The Joy of Nature (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2019; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2021) and retrospectives at Tate Britain, the Centre Pompidou and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017-18). His work is widely represented in major museum and public collections worldwide.