David Hockney has died at age 88, one month short of his 89th birthday.
The iconic British artist, known for his signature bleached blonde hair and colorful, rounded glasses, had a work ethic that kept him creating until the very end of his seven-decade career.
“I have to paint, I’ve always wanted to make pictures since I was tiny,” Hockney said in an interview filmed at his home in France in 2019. “That’s my job, I think, making pictures, and I’ve gone on doing it for 60 years, I’m still doing it.”
Days before the opening of “David Hockney 25,” a months-long 2025 exhibition in which he filled the Fondation Louis Vuitton gallery in Paris with 400 of his artworks, Hockney told The Independent, “I will never stop painting.” At the time, he was 87, fighting a chest infection, and accompanied by a nurse.
“He is very conscious of his physical fragility, but his mind is as clear as is his memory,” the exhibition’s curator Sir Norman Rosenthal, told the outlet.
Hockey’s work continued to evolve throughout his career. “He never stood still. His work embraced stage design, portraits, photo collages, prints, and even faxes,” journalist Andrew Marr said in a BBC documentary about Hockney’s 2012 exhibition “The Art of Seeing.”
New artworks by the artist, including iPad drawings, are on display at The Serpentine Gallery in London in an exhibition that opened on March 12 and is slated to run until August 23, 2026.
Hockney’s commitment to his work — and to continuing to work — places him in good company with other titans of their fields, both corporate and creative, who have said they have no plans to slow down as they age.
It also chimes with evidence that suggests working, which can provide a sense of purpose, could help prevent cognitive decline and lead to a longer life.
A 2019 study of 6,985 participants between the ages of 51 and 61 found that those with a stronger purpose in life were less likely to die in the 16- to 18-year follow-up period.
Researchers at LongeviQuest, an organization that validates the ages of the world’s oldest people, told Business Insider in 2023 that working hard for as long as possible was a common trait among the more than 1,000 people over 100 they had met.
In a statement announcing Hockney’s death, his publicist Erica Bolton wrote: “David Hockney’s enduring legacy reflects his underlying enthusiasm for life, his outstanding sense of humour, his immense generosity, and his investigative curiosity encapsulated by his signature phrase, Love Life.”
