The California Colorist
David Hockney was born in 1937 in Bradford, England. He studied at the Bradford School of Art before earning a gold medal at the Royal College of Art in London in 1962, where his precocious talent quickly set him apart from his contemporaries.
After brief visits to California in the early 1960s, Hockney relocated to Los Angeles in 1964, drawn to its radiant light and relaxed lifestyle. There, he developed his signature approach by combining the observational rigor of European modernism with the sun-drenched palette and sprawling openness of Southern California. His swimming pools became icons: shimmering rectangles of turquoise that captured both the surface pleasures and underlying loneliness of West Coast living.
Hockney has never stopped experimenting. He pioneered photo collages in the 1980s, embraced iPad drawing in his seventies, and continues to paint monumental landscapes that celebrate the changing seasons of his native Yorkshire. His 2018 portrait Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90 million, setting a record for a living artist at auction.
His strengths: Chromatic brilliance, compositional clarity, fearless adoption of new technologies, and an ability to make the ordinary feel revelatory. A lawn sprinkler, a hotel room, a country road: all become subjects worth sustained attention.
Career highlights: Pioneering contributions to the Pop Art movement, groundbreaking experiments with photography and digital media, and a six-decade practice that has continually redefined what painting can be in the modern age.
Leave a Reply