Global News Podcast - Celebrated British artist David Hockney dies at 88

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

We look back on the life of David Hockney - one of the world's most influential modern artists and one of the best-known British contributors to Pop Art. Unlike artists such as Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney's art often focused more on personal experiences, portraits, landscapes and intimate scenes.Also: SpaceX is making its stock market debut in New York, setting Elon Musk on course to be the world's first trillionaire. Iran says major parts of an agreement to end the war with the US have almost been finalised after President Trump claimed a deal was ready to be signed. The UN's top official on HIV and AIDS says massive international aid cuts have left the world's response to the disease "in peril". The number of Palestinians forced from their homes in Occupied East Jerusalem is on the rise. And the American singer Taylor Swift has become the youngest woman ever to be inducted into the prestigious Songwriters Hall of Fame.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail] Photo: David Hockney, in front of his own paintings at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in Piccadilly, London in 2004. Credit: Fiona Hanson/PA Wire

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. When it comes to the World Cup, does border security trump everything? I'm Tristan Redmond with the Global Story podcast from the BBC. Many Africans are angry after a Somali referee was blocked from entering the US. Fair enough? Or might it be prudent to cultivate good relations with a continent of 1.5 billion people? Listen to the global story at BBC.com or wherever you. get your podcasts.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and at 1,500 hours GMT on Friday the 12th of June, these are our main stories. One of the world's best known and loved contemporary artists, David Hockney, has died at the age of 88. SpaceX is making its stock market debut in New York, setting Elon Musk on course to be the world's first trillionaire. Iran says major parts of an agreement to end the war with the US

have almost been finalised after President Trump claimed a deal was ready to be signed. Also in this podcast, the UN agency tasked with countering aides says its work has been put in peril by a dramatic decrease in drugs and testing caused by global funding cuts. And the number of Palestinians forced from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem is on the rise. They destroyed the future and everything else. We spent our whole lives building this house. They brought us back to zero again, me and my children.

One of the world's best known and loved contemporary artists, David Hockney, has died at the age of 88. David Hockney was born in Yorkshire in northern England. In his 20s, he moved to the United States and spent large parts of his life in California, where the culture and landscape fascinated him. His work is characterised by vibrant colours, as shown in his famous swimming pool paintings, such as A Bigger Splash. Vincent Dowd looks back on the life of one of art's great showmen. David Hockney was known in the art world before he was 30, but the general public soon grew to know the name too. Seven years ago, David Hockney won a scholarship from Bradford to the Royal College of Art in London.

Now he has paintings in museums and private collections all over the world. Hockney had a genius for publicity. Hockney's always been irreverent about the British art establishment. He was something of an intruder on the smart Bond Street art scene. Ever since he appeared at his first one-man show in a gold lame suit, Hockney's dyed hair, his boyfriends, and his sheer popularity have made more headlines than his talent. But from the beginning, David Hockney was also dedicated to his art. He left the Royal College of Art in London, where he'd won a gold medal,

in 1962. On these etchings, I have to have it out on the balcony because there's awful fumes when you put in the plate. And so I just close the window to keep them out and let them blow away into Powys Terrace. It was Bohemian life in Paris Terrace, Notting Hill, which later helped make Hockney a star in a film documentary of 1974. A bigger splash. David Hockney, painter, comic, genius, star of star.

Swinging London of the 60s, why do the glamour go stay? Hockney let the camera in on his complex friendships and on the aftermath of his first big relationship with the American Peter Slesinger. Pockney was open and likable. I think it's not as good. My art is not as good as some people think. It's not as bad as some people think as well,

but I assume I will get better. I assume the best work is yet to come. He'd moved to America the first time in the mid-60s. It was California which defined him. Blue skies, shimmering pools and the handsome young men he adored. And he developed his own look, big round glasses and hair dyed blonde. I was watching television slightly drunk and an ad came on saying blondes have more fun. I went out that very moment at 1 o'clock in the morning, which we can do in New York.

and go and buy the stuff and I shoved it on my head and it only takes an hour. In an era when most gay men were guarded about their private lives, David Hockney was resolutely out and it was in California he felt most free. When I'd been painting very quite intensely for a few days and I'm always in the studio and I suddenly, I just want to go out and you don't walk here, I'd get in the car and within half an hour from that house you can be 5,000 feet in the San Gabriel Mountains. It gives you a solar lift.

His essential talent was for drawing, but he was also intellectually fascinated by what a Polaroid camera could do, or a photocopier. A lot of people think of me as some kind of playboy. I see myself as an artist who works most of the time. Nearing 70, David Hockney moved back to his native Yorkshire and the unglamorous resort of Bridlington. The British media were delighted to have him back as a grand old man,

always quotable on topics such as smoking. I smoke for my health, my mental health, and it seems to keep me quite fine. The medical profession, remember, tend to base everything on fear of death. The opposite of fear of death is love of life. Hockney worked on huge watercolours of the Yorkshire landscape. using an iPad and digital cameras.

But an assistant in Bridlington died, and a hugely depressed Hockney crossed the Atlantic once more. Back in Los Angeles, he returned to painting portraits. In 2018, his 1972 picture, Pool with Two Figures, sold for $90.3 million, the most ever paid at auction for a work by a living artist. David Hockney was at the top of the artistic tree, which is where he thought he should be.

The Chinese have a saying, painting is an old man's art. I mean, all are really good painters, I think, did marvellously work. I don't bother much about money. Yeah, I have a very good life here, I do. I mean, I'm not complaining at all. Circumstance had dictated his return to America, but it was fitting. More than half a century before, it was California, which allowed David Hockney the freedom to grow,

as an artist. That report by Vincent Dowd. Next. SpaceX is making its debut on the New York stock market in a move that should make it one of the largest companies in the United States. The blockbuster launch of the rocket and AI firm is also likely to make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. Speaking in Texas, Mr. Musk outlined his plans for the company,

saying he wanted to take the fiction out of science fiction and set up a human colony of at least a million inhabitants on Mars. A New York business correspondent, Michelle Fleury, spoke to us just before the shares started trading on the NASDAQ. It is a record breaker on many fronts. The company is only selling about 4% of shares, but it's raised $75 billion by selling them at $135 a share. And what you're getting for that is not just a rocket company, it's not just a satellite company, It's also a bet on the infrastructure that is going to underpin the AI boom. I'm talking about data centers in space and an even bigger ambition,

and that is Elon Musk's hope to one day colonize Mars. In fact, he's even tied his compensation to that. Such is the sort of ambition that it's commanding this outsized price, which could make Elon Musk potentially maybe later today the world's first trillionaire, depending on how well the shares do. but, you know, it speaks to his outsized personality, that the view here on Wall Street for many is he's too big to bet against. We'll find out whether that's true or not.

And of course, one thing to remember, Elon Musk will retain a strong control of the company even after it does go public. This is why there's been so much focus on Wall Street about this. Both on the Wall Street end of this, how much they would bend the rules to accommodate this, and also the significance of this to the bank. banks it's going to generate a lot of fees and pave the way for these other blockbuster IPOs that are expected later this year from other rival AI companies that kind of offer very different services. So this is testing the water for investors and if it goes well,

I suspect executives within Anthropic and Open AI will breathe a sigh of relief as well. Michelle Flurry. We are once again, it seems, on the cusp of a deal between the US and Iran. But this time, it's not just Mr. Trump. Iran's foreign ministry that saying the big pieces of an agreement to end their war are close to being finalized. President Trump said an agreement could be signed imminently. State media in Iran have been outlining what they say is a draft Iranian-U.S. deal to end the war. Stefan Dajarik, the spokesman for the UN Secretary General, welcomed the positive noises. We hope that it will lead to some concrete action, return to diplomacy or move away from destruction.

And of course, for us, one of the most critical and underpinning factors is the return of full freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. This has had a horrific impact on the global economy and especially on the most vulnerable. The BBC's Tim Franks got more details from our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher, who's in Jerusalem. This is very much the interim deal. I mean, this is just to get the real negotiation underway without the shadow of a threat. all the time that things could escalate back into an all-out war. So, I mean, as far as Mr. Trump is concerned, the US is concerned, you know, key issues about Iran's nuclear program, it's enriched uranium.

I mean, we haven't had any real clarity on what this memorandum will contain on that. From the American side, you know, it's been a sense that it will move towards what the Americans want, which is that Iran's ability to produce any kind of nuclear bomb will be eradicated. But from the Iranian side, I mean, all they've really said, what's come out in the Iranian media from their perspective, the sort of conditions that they say are contained in this initial deal is what we've always had from Iranians is saying that they won't produce a nuclear bomb. Now, that hasn't satisfied President Trump or the Americans in the past, just that commitment. So one can't believe that that's where it's going to end up.

As far as the Strait of Hormuz is concerned, which of course has become an absolute key element of this, although it wasn't before the war started because it wasn't closed. President Trump has said that it will open again as soon as, you know, the ink is dry on the deal. The Iranians are somewhat more circumspect saying, you know, that could happen within the first 30 days after the deal. But what the Iranians are suggesting would be the way that the Strait of Hormuz

would be controlled after that is certain. not something that the Americans, I think, would accept, which is that they, the Iranians would essentially have a form of control over it, potentially with Oman, which is on the other side of it. These are things that the US hasn't accepted in the past. Right, lots to be nailed down. Just briefly, one of the other key players in all this is Israel, which went to war with Iran with the United States back in February.

What are the noises coming out of the government there? Quite muted. There's only been one real statement today in response. to this saying that Mr. Netanyahu, the Prime Minister and President Trump, had a phone call in which, from the Israeli side, just saying that they are on the same page over Iran's nuclear capabilities, but they must never be allowed to have them. Sebastian Usher in Jerusalem. Still to come in this podcast.

To be acknowledged by your peers is something different than being acknowledged by fans. These are the people who are inspired you. Anybody can write a song, but it doesn't make you a song. Taylor Swift is the youngest woman to be inducted into the songwriters' Hall of Fame. When it comes to the World Cup, does border security trump everything? I'm Tristan Redmond with the Global Story podcast from the BBC. Many Africans are angry after a Somali referee was blocked from entering the US. Fair enough?

Or might it be prudent to cultivate good relations with a continent of 1.5 billion people? Listen to the global story at BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With world attention recently diverted by the wars in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, there's been a rise in the number of Palestinians forced from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem. According to UN figures, some 200 Palestinian households, that's about 900 people, are facing eviction cases filed against them in the Israeli courts, mostly by settlers. Israel sees the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, Palestinians want the East to be the capital of their hope for future state.

Our Middle East correspondent Yerlanell has been to meet Palestinians whose homes are being taken over or demolished. From a hillside beneath Jerusalem's walled old city, I watch a Palestinian house being torn down. Israel is accelerating its efforts to move Palestinian residents out of the neighbourhood below. So I've just come down to this plot in Al-Bistan. The bulldozers have moved away. The top floor of the Awad family house is now just a mess of mangled metal, bits of concrete slabs.

They destroyed the future and everything else. We spent our whole lives building this house. They brought us back to zero again, me and my children. Fayez Awad despairs. There's long been an Israeli plan to build a biblically themed park here to be run by a settler group. But in the past two years, some 60 homes have gone, more than half of Al-Bustan. The Jerusalem municipality says houses were built illegally. Palestinians say it's almost impossible to get Israeli permits.

97-year-old Yusra Kueida lives with the constant stress of a demolition order. They want to kick us out of here, she tells me. We're counting on God. In nearby parts of East Jerusalem, Israel uses laws allowing to... takeovers of land owned by Jews before the state was created in 1948 so that settlers can move in. Palestinians can't claim back properties within Israel, which they owned historically. In the old city's Muslim quarter, Israeli flags fly over a Jewish school.

It was originally abandoned a century ago when Jews fled during riots. This is the mosque, the dome of the rock. Oh, wow. Next to this, the Akshap. Wow, you've got the golden dome of the rock. And then the silvery al-Axan. But a Muslim guard, the father of Mufid Bashar, kept the building safe in return for being allowed to live in part of it.

Nearly 60 years after Israel captured this area in the six-day war, his family is now being evicted by the government. I don't have another house, nothing, you know. What do you think your father would think if he knew this was happening now? He will be buried. angry, you know. He keep the books, keep the blaze, the same, everything. And this is the gift what we get from him. Israel's annual Jerusalem Day flag march has increasingly become a display of dominance and racism by the far right. But last month, as Israeli ministers joined in the

event in the old city, Israeli peace activists also came out in force. Aviv Tatarski is from the group Iramim, which believes the city should be shared. We are working. We are working for this goal for decades. We have failed. And today the Israeli government, all restraints are off. They are rushing to cement a reality of a Jewish supremacy in the city that does not really tolerate Palestinian rights or maybe even Palestinian presence in Jerusalem. Back in al-Bustan, I join a tour of foreign diplomats. Their countries support the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. But with current Israeli ministers saying they're acting to bury that idea, Palestinians say it's time for the international community

to stand up for international law. That report by Yolan Nell. After being ousted for trying to impose military rule at the end of 2024, South Korea's former president, Yun-Sut-Yil, has faced several criminal trials. In the latest, he's just been sentenced to 30 years. That's for ordering drones to be sent into North Korea. A correspondent in Seoul, Jake Kwan, told me more about the case. Well, the charge against Yun, which translates literally to aiding the enemy here, enemy being North Korea, it would be called treason if it was in any other country. It's a very serious crime, punishable by up to a life sentence.

What the judge said today is that Yun had harmed South Korea's military when he used them for his personal gain to give his martial law a justification. And Yun's plan in the verdict reads almost like a conspiracy theory really, but according to the judge, he has been planning a loyalist coup for years and a military clash with North Korea would be a perfect pretext. So he ordered a drone sent over Pyongyang and dropped leaflets containing very personal insult against Kim Jong-un, something that will guarantee a response. Now, the plan didn't work because North Koreans showed great restraint, but two months later, Yun declared martial law anyway. And this is just another trial he's faced, isn't it? Yes. He's already in jail with a life sentence for insurrection. South Korean court has found him guilty of trying to seize power by sending troops to the nation's parliament.

I remember going there over that night, and it was a shocking moment to South Korean people who already enjoyed nearly 40 years of relatively stable democracy. I remember seeing the police who were following Yun's orders and locking down the parliament, and they couldn't seem to believe what was happening themselves. Thousands of citizens came out to protest and physically blocked the armed troops and their armored cars. And that military rule ended in six hours, and Yun was soon jailed and impeached.

And so is that it then? Will he spend the rest of his life in jail? Well, you know, South Korea has a habit of sending their president to jail for wrongdoings and then after two to five years, letting them out in a presidential pardon. And this is usually done so to avoid turning politics into a death match and to bring the left and the right together. I think many observers expected Yun to receive a similar treatment,

but we are sensing some change in the mood. Evidence against Yun suggests that there may have been plans to arrest politicians and, quote, unquote, dispose of them. So how magnanimous could those in power right now feel towards him? Also, we've heard the new president E.J. Myeong promising to punish those guilty of insurrection to the end of their lives, quote. Even going as far as to say, they should be treated like the World War II Nazi leadership, and we know how that ended.

Jake Kwan in Seoul. The UN's top official on HIV and AIDS says massive international aid cuts have left the world's response to the disease in peril. She said the reductions, including the scrapping of USAID by the Trump administration, marked a serious disruption to tackling the disease. The details from our global affairs reporter, Charles Havland.

Wini Bianyima, the head of UN AIDS, said the slashing of international aid was reversing hard-fought gains. Prevention is badly affected. Last year, 40% fewer people than in 2024 got a drug called PrEP that helps stop HIV infection. Condom provision has fallen, so too has testing, meaning more people are transmitting the virus without knowing it. Access to help is being compromised as some governments push back against the rights of key groups, including the LGBT Plus community. Miss Biongima praised the more than 50 countries that have committed to raising domestic HIV funding in the face of

the foreign cuts. Charles Havland. Taylor Swift is no stranger to making history. Her era's tour famously became the highest grossing concert tour ever and she's broken hundreds of records across music, across touring, streaming and awards. But her latest achievement is a little different as Stephanie Prentice explains. Taylor Swift arriving in New York to become at 36 the youngest woman ever to be inducted into the song. Writers Hall of Fame. The industry organization honors the craft of writing lyrics, melodies, and compositions rather than commercial success, and entry is peer-nominated and highly competitive.

Hall of Fame class of 2006 inductee Taylor Swift. In an emotional 21-minute speech on stage, Taylor reflected on how she became one of the dominant forces in the modern music industry after starting out as a teenager writing country songs in a small suburban town in Pennsylvania. Songwriting for me was pretty much the only thing I ever just naturally did. And it was easy to choose songwriting over everything else in my life. But it couldn't have been easy for my parents and my brother. I'm good.

To just pick up and move our entire family. I will never be able to express my gratitude. The Gen Z singer, Somber, performed a cover of Taylor's number one single Cardigan, which led the folklore album, and explained the impact of her work on younger artists. She has such a wide catalog, and I think she's someone that I look up to you because I want to build a catalog of all types of songs. Also, I think she's one of the greatest writers alive, greatest touring act,

and I just look up to her so much. Industry legends were also honored at the 55th annual event. Alanis Mora's set was also inducted, and Paul Stanley, the front man of Kiss, explained how important it is. To be acknowledged by your peers is something different than being acknowledged by fans. These are the people who are inspired me. Anybody can write a song, but it doesn't make you a songwriter. This is the songwriters' Hall of Fame. Are we getting donated?

Mmm, donuts. No, sweetie. Taylor's latest projects, a song for Toy Story 5, and a wedding to fiancé Travis Kelsey later this summer, which superfans predict will strengthen her as a writer. I feel like her getting married is kind of proving the haters wrong that, no. I'm not just a girl that is male-centered, only writes about heartbreak. Katie Sue is president of the Taylor Swift Society in London.

She's maturing. So the topics change, the lyrics change. So I feel like the wedding, the marriage and everything, she's going to be experiencing new things. And as Taylor explained, during that 21-minute speech, she doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. And then the fans came along, and nothing, nothing delights and surprises me more than the fact that 20 years after my first song came out, they still want to read the next chapter. Have a good night, guys. Thank you. The pop phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. And that's it from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.co.com.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. And don't forget our sister podcast, The Global Story, which goes in-depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Davith Evans. The producers were Alison Davis and Charles Sanctuary. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye.

When it comes to the World Cup, does border security trump everything? I'm Tristan Redmond with the Global Story podcast from the BBC. Many Africans are angry after a Somali referee was blocked from entering the US. Fair enough? Or might it be prudent to cultivate good relations with a continent of 1.5 billion people? Listen to the global story at BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.