David Hockney b. 1937

Considered a pioneer of the British Pop Art movement in the early 1960s, Hockney has produced work in almost every medium—including full-scale opera set designs, prints, and drawings using cutting-edge technology such as fax machines, laser photocopiers, computers, and even iPhones and Ipads. 

David Hockney studied at Bradford School of Art from 1953 to 1957 and the Royal College of Art from 1959 until 1962. He was awarded the Royal College of Art gold medal in 1962 in recognition of his mastery as a draughtsman and his innovative paintings. His early work was stylistically diverse, combining graffiti-like images with quotations from the poetry of Walt Whitman.

Hockney moved to Los Angeles in 1963. He produced highly evocative, sometimes homoerotic, iconic images of urban life. By the late 1960s his work had become more naturalistic but it was always characterised by Hockney’s alertness to the psychological and emotional resonance of his subject matter.  Hockney’s work also includes landscapes, photography, printmaking and stage designs for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Los Angeles Music Centre Opera.

Recent solo exhibitions have included the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2012), and the Royal Academy’s David Hockney:  A Bigger Picture (2012).

After 2012, Hockney turned away from painting and from his Yorkshire home, returning to Los Angeles.   Today, Hockney's works span several mediums and decades and can be observed in museum collections and retrospectives, gallery exhibitions and auction houses worldwide.