Verified source report
‘He outlived four of his doctors’: David Hockney’s lifelong love of smoking – and the 2,000 cigarettes he kept at home ‘for emergencies’
His passion got him into scraps with the Paris Metro and numerous other bodies. Was it a social crutch? A Freudian response to his father? And why did he take such delight in writing to the Guardian about it all? • David Hockney – a life in pictures • David Hockney’s genius for fashion David Hockney’s last self-portrait that went on show while he lived, in 2025’s Paris retrospective, has a Droste effect: the figure holds a picture in which the figure holds a picture. Between the fingers of one hand, a paintbrush; of the other, a cigarette. He could have been smoking and smoking and smoking into infinity. That’s the elemental truth of the work, and even while that turned out not to be literally true – he died this week, aged 88 – he gave it his best shot. The painting is titled Play within a Play within a Play and Me with a Cigarette, and it got him into a scrap with the authorities of th
What happened
According to The Guardian’s source item, ‘He outlived four of his doctors’: David Hockney’s lifelong love of smoking – and the 2,000 cigarettes he kept at home ‘for emergencies’, His passion got him into scraps with the Paris Metro and numerous other bodies. Was it a social crutch? A Freudian response to his father? And why did he take such delight in writing to the Guardian about it all? • David Hockney – a life in pictures • David Hockney’s genius for fashion David Hockney’s last self-portrait that went on show while he lived, in 2025’s Paris retrospective, has a Droste effect: the figure holds a picture in which the figure holds a picture. Between the fingers of one hand, a paintbrush; of the other, a cigarette. He could have been smoking and smoking and smoking into infinity. That’s the elemental truth of the work, and even while that turned out not to be literally true – he died this week, aged 88 – he gave it his best shot. The painting is titled Play within a Play within a Play and Me with a Cigarette, and it got him into a scrap with the authorities of th
Context
The development sits in VINI’s Culture file for readers following arts, entertainment, fashion, film, music, celebrity, and the business of culture. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-06-13T06:13:30+00:00.
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Source
Primary source: ‘He outlived four of his doctors’: David Hockney’s lifelong love of smoking – and the 2,000 cigarettes he kept at home ‘for emergencies’ via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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Source links
- ‘He outlived four of his doctors’: David Hockney’s lifelong love of smoking – and the 2,000 cigarettes he kept at home ‘for emergencies’The Guardian - 2026-06-13T06:13:30+00:00
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