David Hockney’s California swimming pool paintings, created primarily in the 1960s and 1970s, captured the hedonistic allure of Los Angeles at its cultural peak. Works like A Bigger Splash (1967 right, source : Wikipedia Fair use) distilled California leisure into flat, sun-drenched planes of turquoise and white, contrasting the frozen violence of the splash against the stillness of the surrounding scene.

Hockney was fascinated by the visual challenge water presents: its transparency, reflections, and constant movement. Using acrylic paint, he developed a distinctive graphic language of rippled lines and bold colour fields. The series remains among the most recognisable imagery in postwar British and American art.