{"id":1028166,"date":"2026-06-15T13:22:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1028166\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:22:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:22:42","slug":"the-art-world-honours-david-hockney-who-flew-the-flag-higher-than-any-other-british-artist-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1028166\/","title":{"rendered":"The art world honours David Hockney, ‘who flew the flag higher than any other British artist’ – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The art world has acknowledged the life and legacy of David Hockney who died<\/a> at home 11 June, aged 88, with artists, curators and museum directors paying tribute to a man who was a \u201cgenius in practically every medium\u201d, reports the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The artists\u2019 artist<\/strong><\/p>\n

A plethora of artists have paid homage including Tracey Emin who said on social media<\/a> that Hockney was a \u201cgreat artist and a wonderful man who, with the power of art, changed the perception of Britishness. A proud chain-smoking homosexual who flew the flag higher than any other British artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The writer and ceramicist Edmund de Waal pointed<\/a> to a \u201cwonderful series of 20 mixed-intaglio colour etchings [from 1976] taking Picasso\u2019s The Old Guitarist [1903] and riffing off Wallace Stevens\u2019 textured intertwined exploratory poem, The Man with the Blue Guitar [1937].\u201d De Waal says he read the poem again, thinking of Hockney and \u201chis great generosity, his looking back and handing on, transformations\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>\u00a0meanwhile asked artists to sum up Hockney\u2019s achievements. Marlene Dumas said: \u201cHearing the news of Hockney\u2019s death made me quite tearful. I went back to the poems of CP Cavafy and the etchings that Hockney made in the late 1960s as a homage to them \u2026 and then I got really sad. Hockney inspired the young me in many colourful ways, but the most important for me was discovering an artist that could make such touching work with simplicity and tenderness about love.\u201d Mark Wallinger adds: \u201cI would say he\u2019s the best draughtsman since Picasso. He really did know how to look\u2014and you looked with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Posted by Tristram Hunt on Instagram following Hockney’s death: \u201cIn Memoriam David Hockney RA. A very great friend & supporter of @vamuseum\u201d<\/p>\n

Image credit Juliet Thornback<\/p>\n

Plaudits from museums and curators<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tristram Hunt, the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (V&A), posted<\/a> his own take on Hockney\u2019s famed 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures),\u00a0showing himself standing by the pool edge peering at the water. The V&A said in an Instagram post<\/a> that \u201cfrom photo collages, perspective manipulation to explorations of digital and 3D technologies, to set and costume design for opera and iPad paintings, he constantly embraced new ways of looking and making images\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a post on Instagram<\/a>, The Courtauld Institute of Art in London wrote that Hockney often visited the collection and exhibitions including its Monet and London: Views of the Thames\u00a0show in 2024. Elena Crippa, the senior curator of contemporary art, said in the statement that Hockney \u201cplayed a uniquely important role in how we look and think about the world through images\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Serota, the chair of Arts Council England, said in a statement<\/a>: “He was full of humility about his achievements but his work was admired across the world, with nearly a million visitors to his exhibition in Paris last year [at the Fondation Louis Vuitton], and his legacy is immeasurable. He was, quite simply, a great artist.”<\/p>\n

LGBTQ legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several commentators have highlighted the important of Hockney as an LGBTQ trailblazer who celebrated same-sex love and affection at a time when homosexuality was illegal in the UK (sex between two men over 21 \u201din private\u201d was decriminalised in 1967). Against this backdrop, Hockney\u2019s works\u2014including his 1963 painting Domestic Scene, Los Angeles<\/a>\u00a0showing one man in a shower while another man washes his back\u2014were seismic.<\/p>\n

“For a lot of people growing up now, especially a lot of the gay youth, including myself, you can look at his paintings and assume they’re lovely, pretty pictures,\u201d the curator and cultural strategist James Marshall told the BBC<\/a>. “But they’re also a strong act of protest at a time when showing queer lives as normalised or domesticated was very much avoided.”<\/p>\n

Hockney came out as gay while still at the Royal College of Art in London in the late 1950s. \u201cHe was a pioneer; his work was a bold platform for gay visibility even before partial decriminalisation in 1967. His 1961 work, We Two Boys Together Clinging, created while still at the Royal College of Art, was inspired by Walt Whitman\u2019s homoerotic poetry,\u201d Andrew Given, the director of the Queer Britain Museum in London, wrote in The Independent<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>,\u00a0meanwhile, was more forthright in its appraisal; critic Eddy Frankel wrote, \u201cHe celebrated his horniness\u201d and \u201chelped pave the way for a lot of other gay artists to feel free to express themselves too\u201d.<\/p>\n