In the space of four months, we have lost Georg Baselitz, David Hockney and Yayoi Kusama, and the art world feels emptier now. The titans are gone, leaving behind a deafening silence. These three giants did not merely paint, or sculpt, they explored boundless creative mediums to radically change and rebuild the way humanity perceives space, colour, and form. Yet, beyond their very different aesthetic revolutions, they shared a rare fate as creators who dedicated their entire existences to the avant-garde, choosing to create masterpieces until – and with – their very last breaths.
While millions of admirers now mourn their public legacies, for me the loss of David and Georg carries the sharp, intimate ache of personal absence. To have counted them as dear friends across decades is to have witnessed first hand the exhausting, exhilarating reality of a life wholly consumed by the act of creation. True artists do not retire. They do not put down the brush or the chisel when the world tells them they have achieved enough. As David once said: “You don’t retire doing this.” The trio proved that art is not a career, but an existential necessity.
