David Lynch, the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died just days before his 79th birthday.

His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday. The cause of death and location was not immediately available, but Lynch had been public about his emphysema.

“We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole,’” the post read. “It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

Director David Lynch gives the thumbs up during the meeting Close Encounters where he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, during the Rome Film Festival, in Rome, Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

FILE – In this Jan. 9, 2017, file photo, filmmaker David Lynch attends the “Twin Peaks” panel at the Showtime portion of the 2017 Winter Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. Lynch, Cherokee-American actor Wes Studi and the first woman ever to receive an Academy Award nomination for directing, Lina Wertmüller, will be receiving honorary Oscars at the Governors Awards on Oct. 27, 2019 in Hollywood. The film academy’s board of governors voted on this year’s recipients Saturday, June 1. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

FILE – This May 19, 2017 file photo, David Lynch, co-creator, director and executive producer of “Twin Peaks,” appears at the premiere of the Showtime series in Los Angeles. The “Blue Velvet” director has joined the MasterClass faculty with an online class about creativity and filmmaking. He outlines the process for “catching ideas”, the importance of daydreaming and setting “bait” for creative ideas. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

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Lynch was a onetime painter who broke through in the 1970s with the surreal “Eraserhead” and rarely failed to startle and inspire audiences and peers in the following decades. His notable releases ranged from the neo-noir “Mulholland Drive” to the skewed Gothic of “Blue Velvet” to the eclectic and eccentric “Twin Peaks.”

His other credits included the crime story “Wild at Heart,” winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the biographical drama “The Elephant Man” and the G-rated, aptly straightforward “The Straight Story.” Actors regularly appearing in his movies included Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts and Richard Farnsworth.

Lynch was a Missoula, Montana, native who moved around often with his family as a child and would long feel most at home away from the classroom, free to explore his fascination with the world. He had an early gift for visual arts and a passion for travel and discovery that led to his enrollment in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the beginning of a decadelong apprenticeship as a maker of short movies.

David Lynch, visionary filmmaker behind ‘Twin Peaks,’ ‘Blue Velvet,’ ‘Mulholland Drive,’ dies at 78

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