David Hockney RA British, b. 1937

Overview

David Hockney OM CH RA, born 1937, 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 Galerie Lelong, Paris (2013). The Royal Academy’s blockbuster exhibition - David Hockney: A Bigger Picture in 2012, featuring large-scale works inspired by the East Yorkshire landscape.

Hockney spends time painting between Yorkshire, Los Angeles and more recently France.

Works