These 10 Illustrated Tributes To David Hockney Show Just How Much Love The Creative Community Has For The Late Artist

Creative Boom: Inspiration Illustration These 10 beautiful tributes to David Hockney show just how much the creative community loved him From Bradford to Beverly Hills, Hockney's bold colours and irrepressible joy for living inspired a generation. Here's what they created in response to his passing. Written By: Tom May 15 June 2026 Shih-Yu Lin's watercolour farewell David Hockney, who died on 12 June at the age of 88, was one of the most influential British artists of the modern era. Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, he rose to prominence as a leading figure of the 1960s pop art movement.

He went on to have a career spanning more than six decades, multiple continents and an astonishing range of media: oil paint, photography, stage design, printmaking and, in his later years, the iPad. His 1972 painting A Bigger Splash became one of the most recognisable images in 20th-century art, and in 2018 his Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for nearly £70 million at auction, a record for a living artist at the time. But Hockney was more than a record-breaker.

His depictions of sun-drenched Californian swimming pools, the rolling fields of the East Yorkshire Wolds, and the tender intimacy of gay domestic life were united by a profound love of looking. He taught people to slow down and pay attention to the world around them. And he kept on doing it well into his eighties, painting from his wheelchair right up until the end. When news of his death broke, the creative community responded with an outpouring of grief and gratitude.

We put out a call for illustrated tributes, and the response was overwhelming: artists and illustrators from around the world shared portraits, scenes and homages inspired by the man and his work. What emerges is a collection that's both a farewell and a love letter, full of colour, warmth and the kind of bold mark-making that Hockney himself would surely have appreciated. Here's a selection of the best, along with the stories behind them. 1.

Stanley Chow's minimal masterclass For our lead image (shown above), celebrated illustrator Stanley Chow took a characteristically reductive approach, distilling Hockney down to his most iconic features: that shock of blond hair, the heavy round spectacles, the slightly unfocused blue gaze. Rendered in flat geometric shapes, with not a line out of place, it captures the unmistakable silhouette of a man who was himself something of a walking work of art. Stanley credits Hockney directly for the piece's existence. "One of my favourite Hockney quotes is 'You must plan to be spontaneous,'" he explains.

"It's a quote I live by, and if it weren't for this quote, this portrait I've done of Hockney wouldn't have happened." 2. Kimiya Justus' hand-lettered homage Illustrator and artist Kimiya Justus produced a warm, affectionate, waist-up portrait of Hockney in his white flat cap, dark round spectacles and blue and pink striped cardigan over a yellow shirt, set against a bright blue dotted background. A banner across the bottom reads "Look with both eyes," one of Hockney's most celebrated observations. It's cheerful and immediate, with a hand-drawn quality that feels fond and personal.

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The article highlights the emotional connections in branding inspired by a notable artist's legacy, which is significant but not groundbreaking in the context of brand strategy.