Hockney was born in Bradford West Yorkshire. He attended Bradford College of Art before attending the Royal College of Art where he R. B. Kitaj and Patrick Procktor and Peter Blake. Hockney’s work featured in the exhibition Young Contemporaries, an exhibition that announced the arrival of British Pop Art and he was associated with the movement.
Hockney moved to Los Angeles in 1964, where he was inspired to make a series of paintings of swimming pools in the comparatively new acrylic medium using vibrant colours. The artist lived back and forth among Los Angeles, London, and Paris in the late 1960s to 1970s.
One of the most important and influential artists working today, Hockney works across a range of media from paintings and prints to photography, and full-scale opera productions, to depict observations of his surroundings, most notably portraits and landscapes.
A gifted and prolific printmaker, Hockney’s print career began in 1954 when he discovered the printmaking department at the Royal College of Art gave out free materials. Working mainly in etching, aquatint and lithography, some of Hockney’s most iconic images have been realised in print, made with master printmakers including Ken Tyler, Maurice Payne and Aldo Crommelynk.