About David Hockney

The British artist David Hockney is the most famous living representative of Pop Art. After his education at the Bradford School of Art and his studies at the Royal College of Art, which he completed in 1962, he left for the United States in 1964.

In Los Angeles he started painting with acrylic paint and using Polaroid photos for the first time. His first world-famous paintings of swimming pools were created during this time, of which A Bigger Splash from 1967 is still one of the most prominent examples. In addition to swimming pools, Hockney also paints landscapes, portraits, expressions of homosexual love and still lifes. His work depicting dachshunds is also a popular model from the nineties.

Hockney continues to modernize and innovate his techniques. In recent years he has made several I-Pad paintings, including Do remember they can’t cancel the spring, resembling a Norman spring scene, which he started creating during the first lockdown of the Covid pandemic.

In 1995, Hockney was the fourteenth artist to design a BMW Art Car. This project was started in 1975 by the French racing driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain, who wanted to invite an artist to make a painting on his racing car. He first asked an artist friend, Alexander Calder, to make a design. Artists such as Jenny Holzer, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Esther Mahlangu later followed.

Hockney spent several months working on his design in which he wanted to make the interior of the car visible from the outside. The driver is visible through the door and a dachshund sits in the back seat. The green colour that returns on the car in various places symbolizes the landscape for Hockney. The artist loves to drive, especially when driving through the hilly landscape along California’s winding roads. In his own words, he enjoyed this assignment very much.