June 13Jun 13 One of the most inconic artists of the 20th century has passed away at the age of 88. Brought up in the grime of northern England still recovering from the deprivations of the Second World War, in 1961 aged 24 he discovered California, the year after he realised he himself was gay. He was entranced and mystified, amazed that there was a gay scene and a freedom he could never find in England of that time. He enjoyed everything, even just looking around at the houses and the swimming pools, especially the pools. Arguably his most famous painting is a A Bigger Splash, a very 'sparse' painting with as its subject the eruption of water made by someone who has just dived into one of these pools. Much of that painting was inspired by two photographs he had seen in books. Another 'pool' painting from 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is his most expensive work to date having sold for US$90.3 million in 2018. In a BBC website commentary today Dominic James Bilton, the co-leader of the Queer British Art Network, said - Of his early works, "Those works are so queer, so sensual and sexy and playful and joyous," adding they also show the "domesticity" and "dull aspects of gay relationships". Hockney was "normalising same-sex relationships... that we take for granted", Bilton suggests, adding the artist showed that gay people "are just normal people... doing normal stuff, looking at our partners and thinking: 'oh, you're beautiful'". And as an article in today's Guardian points out - Being gay was just part of the truth he lived and painted. It wasn’t a big deal and he’d be upset if we remembered him as “Britain’s first openly gay artist”. It’s exactly his relaxed and untroubled depiction of a sexuality that was illegal in early 1960s Britain that makes his art so insouciantly subversive. From his splashy 1960-1 painting Doll Boy that confesses to his passion for Cliff Richard (“very attractive, very sexy”) to a composed 1968 portrait of a mature and confident couple, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, the development of Hockney’s art in that decade of revolution is very much about finding the right style to show gay life as it is. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq393dz535o https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jun/12/david-hockney-death-tribute-feast-visual-pleasure
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