‘I think about him every time I go swimming’: David Hockney remembered by Rachel Whiteread, Jeremy Deller and extra | David Hockney

Rachel Whiteread, artist: ‘It was like he was breathing art’

My earliest reminiscences of contemporary artists had been of David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Bridget Riley. I keep in mind seeing a TV programme about David within the Seventies as a younger child and considering “wow, is that what being an artist is like?” Because my mum was an artist however she wasn’t something like that!

Compared with Bridget Riley, who was very kind of cool, David appeared on the market, embracing all of it. He was charismatic and trendy and really out and proud. He made being an artist look enjoyable. I don’t know if it at all times is that enjoyable, however he made it look that method.

I really take into consideration him each time I am going swimming. And I swim a lot. I is perhaps diving to the underside of a pool or trying up from the underside, and it at all times astounds me how he painted water, and figures inside water. The multitudes of layering and light-weight and depth. Those LA swimming pool work had been like such an alien panorama in contrast with chilly, dreary London. They had been my favorite interval of his, however I additionally appreciated when he acquired actually daring and vibrant within the Nineteen Nineties. And as a child I liked his drawings: the traces, the draughtsmanship, the area … they only confirmed you what a grasp he’s. He’s created such an unbelievable physique of labor. I can’t say I’ve liked all of it however I do love how he simply by no means stopped portray. It was like he was respiratory artwork.

Jeremy Deller, artist: ‘He made an anti-smoking councillor hit the roof!’

David was an incredible position mannequin – at all times as much as one thing and having fun with it. He humanised expertise in a method that few have managed. In 2009 he helped me by designing a banner titled The Unrepentant Smokers for a procession in Manchester. When an anti-smoking councillor came upon about it he hit the roof, which DH discovered humorous. The final work I noticed by him was at his Lightroom immersive present. That, in itself, was a enjoyable and tech savvy obituary.

Tacita Dean, artist: ‘He gave us our family motto: Inspiration, she does not visit the lazy!’

Of course my husband, Mathew [Hale], and I had been totally awestruck when printmaking writer Sidney Felsen first took us up by way of the Hollywood Hills to fulfill David in 2014. Every artwork scholar of our period had a duplicate of the David Hockney on David Hockney guide. Even again within the Eighties, he was legendary. But David was immediately heat and welcoming and had little curiosity in an excessive amount of reverence. After that, we noticed him typically at Getty occasions and, as soon as, on a terrace looking over Los Angeles, I noticed the actual method he was holding his cigarette, between his third and fourth fingers, as he smoked. I later requested him if I may movie him smoking and he replied that he’d fortunately sit for me. He was within the midst of an prolonged portrait sequence himself, which was the work that enabled him to transition to working once more in LA after his interval again in Yorkshire.

It was Thanksgiving break so we took our son Rufus with us to recce the area and discuss the movie by way of with David. Rufus had simply had his eleventh birthday and at all times selected to decorate himself in a tie and a 3 piece swimsuit, presumably in response to his poorly dressed dad and mom. Looking at him, David stated: “Actually, Rufus, you might be rather good to paint yourself.” And then, as his assistant Jonathan Mills went to fetch a canvas, he added “Inspiration, she does not visit the lazy” and began that morning to sketch Rufus out. That phrase has since develop into our household maxim.

We spent the subsequent three days going as much as the studio. There have been few higher pleasures in my life than watching David paint Rufus. He painted him with blue eyes (they’re brown) as a result of, we consider, he noticed one thing of his younger self in him. When the time got here to movie David smoking, the portray he’d manufactured from Rufus was hanging with the others on the wall behind him, which is why I titled the movie Portraits.

After that, we turned buddies. David even got here to see Rufus in his college play Cabaret. Some years later, my brother Ptolemy, newly appointed as surveyor of the material of Westminster Abbey, was requested by the then Dean, John Hall, if he knew how one can get involved with David to ask him to make a stained glass window within the Abbey in honour of the queen’s Platinum Jubilee. David took a little bit of convincing and the lengthy e mail chain bore the topic line 3 Deans, however in the long run he resolved it by considering of the hawthorn bushes exploding like champagne in celebration within the hedgerows in his native Yorkshire.

David was insatiably curious and deeply clever. His curiosity guided him to know optics, grasp new applied sciences and new mediums, search out scientists, watch current films. He was a voracious reader. His studio was stuffed with buddies coming by way of who he was at all times pleased to entertain whereas taking a look at his morning’s work on the wall past them. He was a passionate smoker however by no means smoked when he painted, solely when he was trying and he appeared lots. Like few different artists of his stature, David felt assured sufficient as an artist, and who he was, to be unencumbered by prevailing types and prohibitions. His 2025 present in LVMH was unafraid and beneficiant and eventually vanquished those that had underestimated him. David was an inspiration to artists and an evangelist for pleasure who gave the reward of his artwork to a world that actually wants extra not much less of him proper now.

Marlene Dumas, artist: ‘He showed me it was possible to paint love stories and do it delicately’

Hearing the information of Hockney’s dying made me fairly tearful. I went again to the poems of CP Cavafy and the etchings that Hockney made within the late Sixties as a homage to them … after which I acquired actually unhappy. Hockney impressed the younger me in lots of vibrant methods, however an important for me was discovering an artist that would make such touching work with simplicity and tenderness about love.

I admired the works of Francis Bacon about human relationships, however this was one thing very totally different! Up till then, I by no means considered gentleness as one thing robust when it comes to fashionable artwork. Yet these drawings and etchings of intimate homosexual {couples} are usually not solely particular due to their subject material, and when it was made, but in addition as a result of Hockney’s method is so arrestingly sparse. He confirmed me that it was doable to color love tales and to do it delicately.

Hockney stated about Vincent van Gogh: “he really looked … and what he saw, he loved.” That was the particular high quality of Hockney too. He handled his topics lovingly. He appeared to fully lack the aggressive neurosis that’s a part of so many artworks of our time.

Mark Wallinger, artist: ‘He was the best draughtsman since Picasso’

David didn’t simply paint issues – he formed the best way we see the world. Think of his transfer to Los Angeles within the Sixties: what we take into consideration LA at present actually rests upon these swimming pool work. I might say he’s one of the best draughtsman since Picasso. He actually did know how one can look – and also you appeared with him. He’s a type of uncommon artists the place you kind of felt you had been becoming a member of in with him. What a privilege and an honour.

He was at all times pushing issues ahead. In his final present at Annely Juda his iPad works of gardens in moonlight had been miraculous. He had this uncanny facility to seek out the proper medium for no matter it was he needed to depict. My most gobsmacking second with Hockney was 13 years in the past. I used to be in San Francisco and noticed a sequence of charcoal drawings of the approaching spring in East Yorkshire. Through essentially the most delicate marks you would really feel the sunshine reflecting from melting snow in a discipline.

He stated he painted the issues he liked, and he liked life. His work was actually all in regards to the pleasure of being alive. And really, he painted fairly humble pleasures. There’s ardour and light-weight and warmth and libido and all the remainder of it, however he’s solely portray issues we’ve all felt or identified. Our eyes are the issues that conjure the world for us and but we will take the act of seeing and looking out and analyzing as a right. David needed us to look correctly. Beyond all else, it was a delight to see the world refracted by way of his eyes.

Andy Holden, artist: ‘My mum bought me some Hockney socks’

When I left Bedfordshire for Los Angeles, my mom purchased me a pair of David Hockney image socks. At a celebration quickly afterwards, everybody needed to take their sneakers off, and my Hockney socks had been immediately very seen. I wasn’t embarrassed: no hurt in carrying your influences in your ft. Hockney threw down a gauntlet: be constant, however hold altering. I at all times hold a postcard of My Parents, his portray of his mom and father, someplace in my studio, as a result of it’s, to me, an ideal portray. It has the standard I need from any murals. So too do the Los Angeles work: even when cool and indifferent, they do the uncommon, enviable factor of arresting time. The splash of pool water after the dive is suspended for ever. As a young person, it was the Grand Canyon work that first hooked me: essentially the most splendid vacationer footage, so huge they required a number of panels and gave you vertigo. Hockney’s work was a vital early gateway into artwork. You quickly realise he has laid out a full syllabus, a rounded lesson in artwork historical past. He takes pictures critically, factors you in the direction of Matisse, exhibits you mirrors, and makes you conscious of the chance that something could be your topic, so long as you keep current and have a look at what’s in entrance of you.

Helen Marten, artist: ‘He made teabags and toothpaste glamorous’

David Hockney made the wild milkshake of the world a spot of granular human curiosity, a spot the place teabags and toothpaste held equal pathos or glamour with the huge blue swimming pools and bare torsos of Hollywood. I’ve appeared so typically at his work with nice jealousy and consternation, maybe the 2 biggest items one artist may give one other. Treachery in making is just not in the end deception however fairly the sort of carnal, political, or erotic energy that instills new data in issues we consider we already know. Hockney taught everybody how one can learn a puddle, a scratch, a bloom, a cartoonish line, the enveloping totality of vivid color. And he did a lot, by no means falling into the vacuum of technological copy, however dancing gleefully at its edge, lighting fires that positioned substance and style in ever-changing relationships with image-making. To discover a radical queer articulacy is to persist frequently towards the lodged social anticipation of issues solved through seduction or silence. Hockney imbued every part he did with a defiant semantic contact, working all of the whereas with wild optimism and with out hubris. He is a type of uncommon, obsessive intellects who knew that between the hazard of carnage and the miracle of magnificence, there is perhaps a measure to seek out that marks the purpose at which ourselves start, amid the chaos of our strongest emotions. The passing of David Hockney is a cultural paradigm shift; a deep legacy that holds nice magic and everlasting pleasure.

Nicholas Serota, Arts Council England chair: ‘He announced a new generation of painters’

In his work, drawings, iPad compositions and opera set designs, David touched the favored creativeness – his exhibition on the Fondation Louis Vuitton final 12 months drew almost 1,000,000 guests. His curiosity about the best way the world could be depicted inspired him to discover many alternative types. He noticed himself as being in a dialogue with nice masters like Picasso and Matisse, however was additionally impressed by different traditions corresponding to Japanese scroll work. In the early Sixties work like We Two Boys Together Clinging, painted at a time when homosexuality was a legal offence, introduced the arrival of a brand new technology of painters. Throughout his profession, Hockney frequently explored new types of portray and new topics starting from his placing views of life in Los Angeles to the rolling landscapes of Yorkshire and the abundance of nature in Normandy. His affect, generosity, and legacy are immeasurable. He was, fairly merely, an incredible artist.

James Dyson, inventor: ‘At lunch he revealed his iPad, hidden in a poacher’s pocket’

I used to be fortunate to have been on the Royal College of Art shortly after him, following within the wake of his creative vitality. I’ll at all times recall his charming Yorkshire voice explaining in his distinctive and articulate method his strategy to artwork. I keep in mind a lunch with him in Paris, the place he revealed his iPad which had been hidden in a poacher’s pocket. He impressed each one in every of us along with his daring realism, his perceptive colors and his breathtaking iPad work. David experimented and experimented. He was a inventive genius.

Benjamin Myers, novelist: ‘I go on pilgrimage to see his works in Saltaire’

I’ve at all times identified Hockney represented the head of his chosen art-form, simply as I knew the Beatles did. Growing up British, he was simply at all times there – telling the reality, having fun with himself and being the residing perfect of what a working artist could be (in a phrase: free).

For almost twenty years I’ve made visits to Salt’s Mill in Saltaire, a cathedral-like area that Hockney helped discover a new function for. For the previous 10 years my journeys have been particularly to view his The Arrival of Spring assortment. These had been the grasp’s makes an attempt to seize a unique spring day, utilizing solely an iPad and the Brushes app, of the identical tree-lined street close to in Woldgate within the East Riding. This, I consider, was the second that portray actually went digital; even Luddites may see that an artist’s eye will aways matter greater than the format and that magnificence transcends supplies and type.

For years I stood in entrance of those works, drawing inspiration, vitality and peace from them. Then, duly revitalised, I’d pop to the artwork store downstairs to purchase a postcard of the well-known image of Hockney and Alan Bennett collectively in profile – “Dave” and “Al”, two of the nice Yorkshire homosexual males – and smile at all of it the best way residence.

Jonathan Anderson, designer: ‘He depicted queer love unapologetically’

Hockney was the primary artist I used to be fully obsessive about. His work had been sun-soaked and joyful, however extra importantly for me they opened up a world through which queer love and need had been depicted unapologetically. They had been a life-saving escape for a younger homosexual child in rural Northern Ireland (it’s unbelievable to assume that his “love paintings” had been made greater than 20 years earlier than homosexuality was decriminalised there). He’s remained an inspiration to me ever since: his limitless curiosity, his easy type, after all, and the fearlessness with which he explored new instruments and concepts, at all times by some means a few steps forward of everybody else.

Jane and Louise Wilson, artists: ‘He never stopped looking or questioning’

David Hockney’s passing marks the lack of an artist who actually reworked how we see the world. Although we by no means met him, his work has at all times been there for us, one thing that we now have revisited many instances each in our lives and artwork apply. We keep in mind not solely Hockney’s iconic swimming pools within the California gentle, however his fixed curiosity about how pictures are created and the way we expertise them. His work with pictures and copy was not nearly method, it made us all ask the query: what does it imply to see, and the way does expertise change what we see?

Hockney’s set designs for The Rake’s Progress had been outstanding. Based on William Hogarth’s engravings, reworked into three-dimensional area utilizing perspective and heavy cross-hatching. He created these immersive drawings that you would virtually step into. It was a superb imaginative and prescient of how a drawn line doesn’t simply describe area however can develop into area itself.

Hockney’s impression on up to date artwork is profound, and it’ll take us all time to totally recognize his loss. But what nonetheless feels so inspiring is the sense that he by no means stopped trying, questioning and testing the bounds of how we see ourselves and the way a picture could be made.

Clarrie Wallis, director of Turner Contemporary: ‘Few have done more to shape the world we see’

David Hockney was one of many biggest artists of our age. Few have performed extra to form the best way we see the world. Throughout a profession spanning seven many years, he mixed extraordinary innovation with a uncommon generosity of spirit, reminding us that the world is, in his phrases, “very, very beautiful if you look at it”. Whether working in paint, pictures or on an iPad, Hockney inspired us to look extra carefully, discovering surprise within the altering seasons, the panorama and on a regular basis life.

This spring at Turner Contemporary we had been honoured to unveil Hockney’s twenty seventh April 2020, No 1 as this 12 months’s Sunley Gallery Window fee. Drawn on an iPad in his residence in Normandy, this dawn scene types a part of his celebrated exploration of sunshine and the altering rhythms of nature. Here the work is enlarged to architectural scale and illuminated after darkish – reworking our seafront window right into a radiant celebration of sunshine, hope, and renewal. It embodies the optimism and pleasure that characterised Hockney’s outstanding apply.

Thomas Demand, artist: ‘I learned a great deal from one little blue spot’

David Hockney was a major affect on me, particularly as a scholar, and I’ve at all times watched carefully what he was as much as. I learn his early writings and discovered an incredible deal from them — David Hockney by David Hockney, as an example, and his notes on pictures. I didn’t at all times share his views, however they had been stuffed with basic insights. His tone in these books was unpretentious and lucid, straight relevant to every day apply, even for somebody like me, who on the time neither painted nor made images.

In Bavaria, for the time being when the Teutonic wave of dangerous figurative portray swept by way of like a tempest, one infrequently noticed his works within the flesh. So I travelled, and found how fastidiously thought-about they had been — and but how a lot he allowed issues to occur. He was undogmatic, beneficiant in the direction of the work in a method that just about nobody else was on the time.

One element specifically stayed with me: the unpainted white border round A Bigger Splash, with a small drop of blue paint on the backside — the sort of factor one would possibly furiously attempt to clear away or by some means rescue. Hockney merely let it stay. I discovered an incredible deal from that little spot: about magnificence, perfection, and the grace of not being inflexible.

Philippe Parrenom, artist: ‘With Hockney, colour becomes intelligence. Perspective becomes desire’

Seeing, in Hockney’s work, was by no means passive. We don’t merely obtain the world by way of the eyes; we assemble it by way of reminiscence, need, motion and a spotlight. The portray turns into a airplane the place time immediately seems.

A splash!

Synchronicity between sound and picture doesn’t come solely from the truth that they occur on the similar second. It comes from the sensation that the sound has already been heard. What we acknowledge is just not a trigger, however a reminiscence. We are haunted by an earlier listening.

Hockney’s splashes, swimming pools and seashores are acoustic. A quick sound enters the picture: a disturbance of the floor, one thing showing and disappearing on the similar time. It is just not solely water being represented; it’s an occasion. Something has occurred, or is about to occur. The portray holds that interval.

The historical idea of extramission imagined imaginative and prescient as one thing emitted by the attention. Greek mathematicians and astronomers described eye-beams as straight, conical rays extending outward from the attention towards the noticed object. Seeing was a type of emission. As a science, the thought belongs to the previous. But as a poetic fact, it feels very near David Hockney’s work. His work don’t appear to obtain the world passively. They ship one thing towards it.

In questioning the only mounted viewpoint, Hockney made this much more express: the sensation that seeing is cell, constructed, alive. Classical perspective locations one eye earlier than one world. Hockney opened that construction. He allowed many moments of imaginative and prescient, many positions, many durations to coexist.

The seen world feels unfinished in his work. Colour turns into intelligence. Perspective turns into need. Painting turns into a type of consideration to one thing which will occur.

Andrew McMillan, poet: two shortly sketched ideas on David Hockney

12.6.2026

i)
how so typically in his portraits
he appeared to seize the sitter
within the second simply after
they’d been advised that they had been lovely

ii)
how issues appear barely duller now
just a little drier my buddy Joe saying
he feels a sudden urge to stay
whereas I’m considering of timber our brevity how they’ll outlast