Remembering David Hockney: A Curator's Personal Tribute

Stephanie Barron, senior curator at LACMA, recounts her decades-long friendship with David Hockney, who died on June 11 in London at age 88. She first met him in 1976 at his exhibition 'Works in the Eye' at Nick Wilder's gallery in Los Angeles. Over 50 years, she visited his studios in Los Angeles, Malibu, Normandy, and London, co-organized his first retrospective at LACMA in 1988 (which traveled to the Met and Tate), and sat for a portrait in 2014 as part of his series '82 Portraits and 1 Still-life'. Barron describes the intense three-day sitting process, Hockney's use of charcoal and paint, and his habit of sending iPad drawings to friends during the pandemic. Hockney moved to LA in the early 1960s and established his Hollywood Hills studio in 1978. His work defined LA's visual identity. Barron reflects on his curiosity about perspective and realism, his hearing loss, and his final retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in spring 2025.