David Hockney: Digital Colors and Timeless Visual Poetry

David Hockney (b. 1937) is one of the most celebrated, recognisable, and collected living artists in the world. From 1960s California to the landscapes of Normandy, Hockney has reinvented modern visual language through a unique use of colour, space, and personal storytelling. His work is instantly recognisable yet endlessly surprising—making him essential in any serious contemporary collection.

A Lifelong Career of Innovation

From his early days at the Royal College of Art in London, Hockney sought to liberate the image from academic constraints. When he moved to California, the bright light and modernist architecture transformed his palette. The result was an entirely new artistic vocabulary: swimming pools, domestic interiors, vivid skies, and flat shadows—art that captured the optimism and sensuality of West Coast living.

Over time, Hockney has explored a wide array of media, from oil painting to digital drawing, screenprints to photo collages. Despite the medium, his style remains unmistakable. He has spent a lifetime exploring the nature of perception, composition, and the joy of looking.

A Market Defined by Stability and Growth

Hockney’s market is as iconic as his art. From 2014 to 2024, his price index increased by an impressive 361%, while the FTSE 100 grew only 9%. His estimated market cap now sits at $2.1 billion. His prints, especially works from series like My Window or Hotel Acatlán, have seen average price increases of 154% since 2014.

The Hotel Acatlán series—part of his Moving Focus project—has shown particularly strong performance: First Day has appreciated by 448% since 1996, while Second Day and Two Weeks Later have increased by 297% and 304% respectively. The series is a masterclass in technical experimentation, combining lithography, etching, screenprinting, and collage into dynamic, layered images.

What to Collect from Hockney

Collectors today are particularly drawn to works on paper, editioned prints, and digital works. The My Window iPad drawings, created between 2009 and 2012, are among his most beloved recent works, capturing the same scene from his Normandy home across the changing seasons. Still lifes, especially floral compositions like Lillies and Flowers, are also popular.

For top-tier collectors, Hockney’s pool paintings remain among the most coveted. In 2018, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold at Christie’s for $90.3 million, setting the auction record for a living artist.

Museum Presence and Recent Exhibitions

Hockney’s work is a staple of the world’s most important institutions. From the Tate Modern to MoMA, Centre Pompidou to the Art Institute of Chicago, his presence is constant and growing. His 2017 retrospective at Tate Britain drew over 478,000 visitors—the most-attended show in the museum’s history.

In recent years, major solo shows have included Drawing from Life at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Normandism in Rouen, and Hockney and Piero at the National Gallery. In 2026, the first volume of his Catalogue Raisonné will be published, documenting over 35,000 works in what promises to be one of the most important scholarly art projects of the decade.