‘Summer art’ is my new blog from season series, as I wrote the blog about Spring Art and Winter Art. Summer is my favourite season, lazy and creative, so I wanted to find some outstanding, artsy and stylish paintings and photography by famous creators.
1. David Hockney – The Pool Paintings (Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972 & The Splash, 1966)
David Hockney’s pool paintings have become synonymous with a certain vision of California summer—clear skies, sharp shadows, turquoise water.
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Portrait of an Artist places a suited man at the edge of a pool, gazing down at a submerged swimmer. The tension between the observer and the observed adds a psychological undercurrent to the otherwise serene scene.
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The Splash captures the frozen moment after a diver hits the water, all geometry and energy, with the diver themselves absent—making the scene both mysterious and universal.
Hockney’s pools are not just about leisure; they’re studies in perception, light refraction, and the way memory flattens moments into perfect compositions.
2. Alex Israel – Summer (Installation Series, 2015–2017)
Alex Israel transforms summer into a cinematic brand. His installations, featuring oversized UV-tinted “Lenses,” gradient-painted sky backdrops, and sculptural beach props, turn the gallery into an immersive fantasy of Los Angeles leisure. The effect is deliberately artificial—everything is glossy, staged, and larger than life. It’s summer as a cultural product: the dream sold on postcards and movie screens, distilled into shapes and colors you can almost step inside. Here, you read my blog about Alex collaboration with Louis Vuitton (and its London store opening).
3. Max Dupain – Sunbaker (1937)
Shot on a beach in New South Wales, this photograph is often considered the quintessential image of Australian summer.
A lone figure lies face down in the sand, arms bent, head turned to the side, the sunlight accentuating the musculature of his back. The image is elemental—just skin, sand, and sky—capturing not only the heat and relaxation of summer but also its physicality. Dupain himself saw it as a symbol of health and vitality, in tune with the sun. 
4. Anders Zorn – Sommar (1887)
In this tender oil painting, Swedish master Anders Zorn shows a couple drifting in a small rowboat on still water, surrounded by soft summer light.
Zorn’s brushwork blends impressionistic looseness with careful attention to skin tones and reflections, making the water shimmer with life. Sommar feels like a private moment captured in the endless days of the Nordic summer, when dusk never fully arrives.
5. José Suárez – Ibiza, 1960
Spanish photographer José Suárez documented Ibiza before it became a global tourist magnet. His color-rich work captures fishing boats pulled onto sandy shores, whitewashed houses glowing in the afternoon sun, and locals in traditional linen clothing.
These photographs preserve a slower-paced summer—full of salty breezes, stone streets, and an intimacy with place that has largely disappeared.
6. Lucy Laucht – Il Dolce Far Niente: The Italian Way of Summer
Lucy Laucht’s ongoing photographic project celebrates the Italian philosophy of “the sweetness of doing nothing.”
Her warm, saturated images show parasol-lined beaches in Liguria, pastel balconies above turquoise coves, and sunbathers stretched across smooth rocks. Laucht’s lens doesn’t just record a scene—it invites you into the sensory experience: the hum of cicadas, the salt drying on your skin, the drowsy rhythm of a seaside afternoon.
