David Hockney: Farewell to one of Yorkshire’s favourite sons who did it his own way but never forgot his roots
Imagine life without colour; it would be a far poorer place. And if there was one artist who managed to capture the world’s vivid colours, it was David Hockney.
The passing of the Bradford-born artist was met with great sadness across the world. He was more than just an artist, Hockney was an inspiration.
People need only look around his home city of Bradford to see how venerated Hockney was. Last year’s City of Culture had Hockney’s creative DNA all over it. The most obvious example being the ‘Painting the Sky’ celebration that saw the sky above Saltaire come to life with a drone show recreating artworks from across Hockney’s career.
There is a reason why Hockney is viewed as a national treasure, reflected by the mourning that has followed his death at the age of 88. While liberally drawing on the art of the past, the artist very much forged his own path.
As an art school rebel, Hockney was initially denied a diploma, partly because he refused to complete an essay assignment, insisting he should be judged on his artwork alone.
Hockney didn’t suffer shallow criticism gladly either. When some critics took aim at him for embracing landscape painting in his later years, his response was that “he didn’t give a damn”. This was a man who knew the work that he wanted to produce and then produced it to a peerless standard.
That standard was evident in 2018 when in 2018, his painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) was sold at auction in New York for £70m – smashing the then record for a work by a living artist.
But Hockney was more than an iconoclast. Just as impressive as his work is the journey that the artist took.
He grew up in a working class family in industrial Bradford. He wanted to be an artist, an ambition which was not encouraged by his teachers at Bradford Grammar School, but with the support of his parents, he entered the local art college. From there he went to the Royal College of Art in London where he was mocked for his Yorkshire accent.
It’s something that many people from this part of the world will have been able to relate with.
Hockney, in a typical no nonsense Yorkshire way, famously bit back saying “I’d look at their drawings and think if I drew like that I’d keep my mouth shut.”
The lesson that he leaves behind for people is that don’t be deterred by others, work at what you're passionate about and never feel like you need to be like someone else to succeed.
His Yorkshire identity never left him, even when he made the move to California in the 1960s. Hockney’s gentle Yorkshire burr and flat cap endeared him to the public.
In fact in the 1990s he began returning more regularly to Yorkshire where he was encouraged by a friend to start capturing the local surroundings, completing his painting of Garrowby Hill in 1998.
Eventually Hockney returned full-time, setting up home in Bridlington, while going out to paint the surrounding countryside using both oils and watercolours.
Despite his years in the States, he insisted he had always felt “very English”. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Yorkshire who would argue against him being described as Yorkshire’s favourite son.
An exhibition in 2012 at the Royal Academy focused on his Yorkshire landscapes, entitled A Bigger Picture. It was a huge hit, attracting 600,000 visitors.
Hockney’s legacy won’t just live through his impressive catalogue of work. Countless artists young and old have been inspired by him and will continue to be inspired by him.
It’s not just artists that can draw inspiration from Hockney. Young people across Bradford can look up to the journey that he took and aspire to excel in their chosen field regardless of their own circumstances.
After all, few people ever go from a grammar school in Yorkshire to declining the opportunity to paint Queen Elizabeth II, claiming that they were “too busy” painting England – “her country”, before designing a stained-glass window at Westminster Abbey in tribute to her.
Unveiled in 2018, it marked her love of the countryside with a scene of Hawthorn blossom from his native Yorkshire. “I hope she’ll like it,” Hockney said.
His story is a reminder that no one should be written off because of where they are born or for being unashamedly northern.
The vivid colours that he became synonymous with brightened up the world just as David Hockney himself did. He will be missed but there is little danger that this once in a generation artist will be forgotten.
Hockney took pride in his Yorkshire roots and Yorkshire is proud of one of its favourite sons.