David Hockney , who died yesterday at the age of 88, was proof positive that you didn’t have to come from Paris or London to be an Innovator in the art world.
Born in Bradford , he made art with a photographer’s eye for detail, but a painter’s delicate, experimental touch. His famous approach to water, with little neon strokes of brushwork in A Bigger Splash for example, ripped up the rulebook. So too, his figurative work was unlike anything else: vibrant and eye -popping.
He was a mass of contradictions: gentle but no- nonsense, steely but calm, humorous but absolutely dedicated. He worked right up to the end, using new technology -as he’d previously done with Polaroids and Xerox- now filling up entire rooms with the use of apps , creating full size landscape montages.
The world needs more like Mr Hockney. He never stood still, the antithesis of boredom and complacency. He created badges which read, “End bossiness soon”. Rest in peace, you splendid man.
Hit The North 