David Hockney: All you need to know about British artist who passes away a month before his 89th birthday

One of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art in Britain, David Hockney has died aged 88, it has been announced.

Describing Hockney as "one of the most important figures in contemporary art in both the 20th and 21st centuries", his publicist Erica Bolton said in a statement that he had "passed away peacefully at home" in London on Thursday, a month before his 89th birthday.

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According to a report by the AFP, David Hockney´s paintings captured the world in brilliant colour, from carefree 1960s California to the bucolic landscapes of his native Yorkshire.

Hockney, who died Thursday aged 88, always retained his Yorkshire burr and a determined liking for fish and chips and cigarettes as he grew to be "perhaps the most popular and versatile British artist of the 20th century", in the words of Britain´s Tate gallery.

He leaves behind a huge body of works.

Born in 1937 to working-class parents in the northern English town of Bradford, Hockney went against the conventions of post-war Britain.

As a young man, Hockney was a conscientious objector and did his military service as a hospital orderly, before studying at the Bradford School of Art and then London´s Royal College of Art from 1959.

Hockney moved to California in 1964 and began painting the bright, pared-down, sun-soaked scenes that were to seal his reputation as a major figure in the pop art movement, particularly his 1967 "A Bigger Splash", capturing the moment after someone has dived into a swimming pool.

As per Reuters, one of his most famous paintings, "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" — showing a figure swimming underwater and a man gazing into the pool — sold for $90.3 million in 2018, the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction at the time.

As he grew older and his life turned more domestic, dogs replaced men in Hockney's work, at a time when many of his friends were dying of AIDS.