5 essential David Hockney artworks that capture his glimmering Los Angeles

David Hockney, the towering English artist who made Los Angeles his home, created many pieces that epitomized the city’s sun-drenched landscapes filled with glittering pools, rolling hills and lush foliage.Here are five of his best.

Hockney’s largest canvas — at more than 7 feet tall and 20 feet wide — is filled with deft lines and Hockney’s signature swirls.It depicts the artist’s daily commute from his home in the Hollywood Hills to his studio on Santa Monica Boulevard.

The iconic winding road from the painting’s title twists and sweeps through hills of blue, purple and pink.A swimming pool and tennis courts can be seen in the background and the landscape is dotted with power lines and trees.

Cross-hatched grids in the background represent the vastness of the surrounding areas, including Burbank and Studio City.That the canvas is a representation of driving — one of the city’s core activities — makes it especially resonant with Angelenos who recognize that time spent in the car, while often frustrating, can also be a thing of transcendent beauty on the right road.

Hockney loved to take visitors on what he called a “Wagner Drive,” winding through hills listening to opera.The work is part of the permanent collection at Los Angeles County Museum of Art and is currently on view.

Entertainment & Arts David Hockney, the innovative and prolific British artist who arrived in Los Angeles in 1964, soon celebrating its sun-drenched life and landscapes in colorful, wildly popular paintings, has died.This is one of Hockney’s most iconic paintings — a large-scale image of a luminous blue swimming pool marked by a diver’s splash.

A sleek modernist home with a single white director’s chair sits in the background with two slender palm trees rising into the light blue sky behind.A diving board juts into the frame to dominate the right corner.

A frothy white water splash suggests the presence — and momentary absence — of the swimmer n...