Across a seven-decade career, David Hockney, who died earlier this month, created a singular body of work that encapsulated the feeling and the sensibility of the places he called home. Among the most famous of these are his images from the late 1960s and early ’70s of Los Angeles, capturing the sun-drenched pools of wealthy homes and the collectors who lived there. Later on, he would paint vistas of the Grand Canyon, East Yorkshire, and Normandy, to name a few. Hockney would also become known for his portraits, infusing his subjects with a rare pathos. His double portraits of couples, effused with the tension and tenderness of love, stand out.
Hockney’s art would go on to inspire generations of artists. Below, three artists share what David Hockney meant to them.
Jordan Casteel
Jordan Casteel, Nina, 2024.
David Hockney taught me that color and line could communicate feeling as much as form. As a young painter, encountering his work was transformative. He used portraits, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life to deepen our understanding of his vibrant world and in doing so, those who were often misunderstood were rendered with dignity, intimacy, and joy. Through his decades of work, Hockney showed me and generations of artists that looking closely is an act of care. Continually reminding us that there is always more to see, and that painting remains one of the most powerful ways of helping us see one another. For that we are greatly indebted.
Jay Lynn Gomez
Jay Lynn Gomez, No Splash, 2014.
I woke up to the sad news of David Hockney’s passing. His influence on my work has been constant ever since my art mentor, Mr. Brockie, first showed me a book of his work in high school. When I took the live-in nanny job in the Hollywood Hills, I realized the house I was working in was very similar to the one he featured in his iconic A Bigger Splash. Little by little I made that series [“Domestic Scenes”] with a lot of respect and admiration but also necessity to expand the meaning of those paintings that have influenced the image of Los Angeles.
I was always worried about what he thought but once I decided to finish that series, the writer Lawrence Weschler, who was a close personal friend of his, unexpectedly took me up to his Hollywood Hills home to meet him. I was able to talk about my paintings with him that day and hear directly from him that he admired and appreciated my versions. I will never forget his words, his jokes, and even his randomness like getting up during lunch to show me the physical Fra Angelico book he had.
He often spoke about the influence Picasso had on his work. When I heard about the news [of his passing], I decided to recreate one of his Artist and Model prints he made in 1973 because I wish I would’ve gotten to sit for a portrait for him as Jay Lynn. I will carry his memory with me. May he rest in eternal peace. 🕊️
Bryson Rand
Bryson Rand, John/Summer Rain, 2024.
I lived in New York City in 2003 over the summer between my junior and senior year of college. Having had my first sexual experience with a man a couple months before while visiting New York, I took advantage of what the city had to offer a 20-year-old gay boy. The highs and liberation found in clubs and sex were matched by anxiety and shame that stemmed from growing up in a military family. When I returned to the University of Colorado for my final year of school, the gallery on campus had a an exhibition of David Hockney’s “A Rake’s Progress,” a series of 16 etchings from the early ’60s. I was taking printmaking classes after the photo department turned out to be a disappointment, so I went to the show to see the etchings without knowing much about Hockney. The prints recount Hockney’s first trip to New York as a young man and it was the first time I can recall seeing works of art that were directly about a gay experience. I remember rushing out of the gallery when someone else came in fearing they would somehow know the prints mirrored the thrills and disappointments I had just experienced over the summer.
I returned to the exhibition several times during its run and was inspired to make my thesis work about my own experience in New York. As embarrassing as that work is now, making it forced me to come out to my friends (no one was surprised) and eventually my family (because they were going to see my work at graduation). Hockney’s work helped me unclench and begin the long process of better understanding my place in the world through artmaking. I am grateful to him for being a guide at the start of my artistic path.