The other side of David Hockney – A life in pictures

It was a trait never more apparent than in 1989, when his choice of medium for a stylized painting of his home city was the front cover of the Bradford telephone directory.

Hockney’s retrospective exhibition opened at the Tate Britain two years ago, but these shots, taken across half a century, show another side to the world’s best-selling artist.

He had left Bradford in 1959 to attend the Royal College of Art in London, but it was in Los Angeles where he established himself in the mid-1960s as a leading light in the new pop art movement.

It was also in California that he produced his famous swimming pool paintings and began working in photography, creating collages which he called joiners. His innovation earned him the title of most influential British artist of the 20th century, in a poll conducted nine years ago.

Although he left Bradford behind, Yorkshire has remained a recurring theme for his art. He bought his former home in Bridlington in order to explore the surrounding Wolds, which he then immortalised in a series of works – one of which sold for £9.4m at auction two years ago.

He captured the Wolds again in perhaps his most visible recent work – the 20ft Queen’s Window in the North Transept of Westminster Abbey, created on an iPad and commissioned to mark the longest reign of a British monarch.

Some said it sat uneasily with the great works of religion, but Hockney, who is now 82, pointed to the influence of Matisse and Chagall on his abstract hawthorn blossom motif.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson, Editor