British painter David Hockney, whose vibrant portraits and sun-drenched depictions of the everyday made him one of contemporary art’s most beloved figures, has died at 88.
The artist died “peacefully at home” on Thursday, one month short of his 89th birthday, according to a statement provided to CNN by his longtime publicist Erica Bolton.
Born in Bradford, UK, in 1937, His deeply personal realist style was characterized by self-portraits, still lives and depictions of friends and lovers (and, later, his dachshunds Stanley and Boodgie, whom he immortalized in a series of paintings and an accompanying book).
Among his best-known works are a series of light-filled swimming pool paintings that seemed to freeze a moment in time. But his oeuvre was diverse, spanning photography, printmaking and stage design for ballet and opera productions.
In 2018, “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” fetched $90.3 million to become (if only briefly) the most expensive work by a living artist ever to sell at auction. The next year, his double portrait “Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott” went for $49.5 million at Christie’s, while his 1980 landscape painting “Nichols Canyon” went on to fetch over $41 million.
