Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)

This is one of David Hockney's most famous paintings, and it tells a quietly emotional story. We see two figures: one man swimming underwater, and another standing at the edge of the pool, fully dressed in a pink jacket, looking down at him. The standing figure was modeled on Peter Schlesinger, Hockney's former partner. Their relationship had recently ended, and many people read the painting as a meditation on distance, longing, and the space that grows between two people. The bright California sunshine and gorgeous mountain backdrop only make that feeling of separation more striking.

Hockney painted this during his years in Los Angeles, where he became known for capturing swimming pools, sunlight, and the relaxed glamour of West Coast life. His style here is clean, flat, and colorful, with that famous shimmering water he loved to paint. There is a fun bit of history too. Hockney was unhappy with his first version and actually destroyed it, then rushed to finish this one in just two weeks before a deadline, working long hours to get it right. The effort paid off. In 2018 the painting sold for over 90 million dollars, setting a record at the time for a living artist.