David Lynch has died. His cerebral filmmaking vision was shaped by Philadelphia

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Filmmaker David Lynch has died. The writer, director and multi-faceted artist who studied art in Philadelphia went on to make movies and television, such as “Twin Peaks,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive.” He won an honorary Academy Award in 2019 for his filmmaking career.

Lynch was 78 and had been diagnosed with emphysema after a lifetime of smoking. His death was announced Thursday via Facebook.

Born in Missoula, Montana, Lynch came to Philadelphia to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which later curated his first museum overview exhibition, “David Lynch: The Unified Field.”

Toward the end of his tenure at PAFA, he began experimenting with incorporating movement and sound into his paintings, culminating in a short film involving projection, sculpture, painting and sound design called “Six Men Getting Sick.”

“I only wanted to be a painter,” Lynch said in 2014 at PAFA. “Painting led to wanting to do a moving painting with sound. Cinema to me is sound and picture moving together in time. It was born out of painting.”

From Philly, he went to Los Angeles to study film, creating his first feature film “Eraserhead.” The deeply strange film set in an eerily claustrophobic urban environment became a cult hit and was influenced by his time living in the Spring Garden/Callowhill area of Philadelphia.

He lived near Poplar and Girard Avenue with his wife and infant daughter, where he witnessed a 13-year-old boy gunned down in the street. He said the experience influenced his vision for “Eraserhead.”

Local fans have dubbed the neighborhood Eraserhood.

“When I call it Eraserhood, I’m talking about an intersection between a real place and an imaginary place,” Bob Bruhin, author of “Walking the Eraserhood: A street-level exploration of Philadelphia’s infamous Callowhill Industrial Historic District,” told WHYY’s Billy Penn in 2015. “There’s a whole twist of thought that comes from comparing what David Lynch did with it, with reality. Eraserhood is darker and scarier than Callowhill actually is.”

Lynch went on to occupy an unusual seat in the pantheon of Hollywood: a surrealist who made popular films. “Lynchian” became a descriptor to prepare audiences for a bizarre ride they might not fully understand.

He is remembered for his unflinching eye on disturbing content.

“A sore can be very beautiful. But as soon as you name it, it stops being beautiful to most people,” Lynch said in 2014. “A sore in the skin, an infection, a deep cut with pus and discoloration. If you took a picture of it, a close-up and you didn’t know exactly what it was, it could be a great beauty of organic phenomenon.”

Lynch was a longtime practitioner of transcendental meditation, which he promoted for stress relief and mental peace.

His last feature film was “Inland Empire” (2006), his only film shot entirely in digital video. He also made short films and web content and occasionally appeared as an actor. He also designed furniture, some of which appeared in his films.

In 2024, he announced his emphysema had gotten so bad that he was no longer able to leave his home to work.