Paul McCartney has paid a heartfelt tribute to “clever and witty” painter and friend, David Hockney.
Hockney, known for paintings including: The Splash; and Mr And Mrs Clark And Percy; died peacefully at home on June 11th aged 88.
Tributes poured in for the celebrated artist, including from the British king and queen, with The Beatles taking to Instagram to honour the artist.
Sharing a photograph of the pair together in a post on Saturday, McCartney said: “David Hockney was a friend and an incredible painter. I knew him during the 1960s and kept a friendship going till he died on Thursday, the 11th of June.
“He was very clever witty and fun to be with. His paintings often gave off a feeling of great joy.”
The musician said he and his wife, Nancy Shevell, enjoyed visiting Hockney’s studios in California as well as in London adding that the rooms were often filled with paintings including some of the most recent pictures he had done.
McCartney added: “He would talk about them and his very particular views on art. He felt that it was important to see correctly. He wasn’t a great fan of perspective and was always involved in inventing new ways to view the world.
“His many paintings, drawings, films and other media like iPad drawing he took readily to and mastered.”
Hockney was lauded for his use of different formats, and embraced printmaking, set design, and photography to evolving media including photocopier and fax machines, computer, iPhone and iPad drawing, and stained glass.
He went on to describe Hockney as a “serious chain smoker” and recounted a time when he visited the painter in Yorkshire and was picked up at the train station in a “smoke-filled car”.
“(He) believed it was it was everyone’s right to smoke like the days when he and I had been brought up in smoke-filled rooms.
“We will miss his fabulous personality, his laconic wit and his erudite views on how to look at the world. Rest in peace, David. We love you.”
Hockney’s celebrated career spanned seven decades.
Many of his most beloved paintings were shown at Tate Britain in 2017, which became the gallery’s most popular exhibition to date, pulling in almost half a million visitors.
Popstar Harry Styles, who was painted by Hockney with the portrait displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2023, paid tribute to the artist during his first show for his record-breaking residency at London’s Wembley Stadium on Friday.
Styles flashed up a quote from the artist on screens around the venue before performing his hit, Aperture.
It read: “What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing.
“You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.”
Earlier, on Friday, British king Charles said in a message issued by Buckingham Palace that he and the Queen were “greatly saddened” to hear that “the giant of the world of art and painting” had died.
The British king had hosted Hockney on multiple occasions, including in November 2022 for his first Order of Merit luncheon, where the artist famously wore a suit paired with bright yellow, rubber shoes.
Referencing this, Charles said: “David was one of life’s true originals; one who wore his genius as lightly as those beloved yellow Crocs of his that helped brighten Palace occasions.
“I trust they will see him tread safely into the hereafter as we mourn a man whose irrepressible charm, talent and constant innovation will be most sorely missed, but whose dazzling creativity lives on in galleries and museums around the world.”
In 1990s, the artist was offered a knighthood but refused the honour, and instead was appointed by the late British queen to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1997 and to the Order of Merit in 2012.
Others who paid tribute to the artist included Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain, who said: “David was an endlessly inventive artist, with a unique vision of the world. He was always completely and courageously himself, both in his work and in life.”
Meanwhile, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Victoria Siddall, hailed Hockney as “one of the greatest artists of the 20th and 21st centuries” while Nicholas Serota, chairman of Arts Council England, praised him as an “artist of constant invention” who was “full of humility about his achievements, but his work was admired across the world”.
Hockney is survived by his long-time partner and companion, Jean-Pierre Goncalves de Lima; his great-nephew Richard, who acted as studio assistant in his last years; his brothers Philip and John; and numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.
