The King has today led a wave of tributes to David Hockney, the 86-year-old artist whose kaleidoscopic vision has reshaped British art. In a ceremony at Windsor Castle, the monarch praised Hockney for his "unbroken commitment to capturing light, life, and the peculiar joy of our islands." It is a moment that feels both overdue and perfectly timed: a nation finally giving collective voice to its admiration for a man who painted his way into the global imagination.
Hockney, born in Bradford in 1937, has spent decades confounding expectations. From his early pop-art pool paintings in Los Angeles to his current iPad drawings of Yorkshire landscapes, he has refused to be pinned down by medium or movement. His works hang in the world's great galleries, yet he remains a stubbornly local figure, obsessed with the hedgerows and seasons of the English countryside. It is this tension between the universal and the intimate that makes him so distinctly British.
The day's centrepiece was the unveiling of a new portrait of the King by Hockney, a commission that reportedly began two years ago. The painting, titled "The Monarch and the Apple Tree", shows the King standing next to a blossoming crab apple tree in the gardens of Highgrove. Hockney's signature bold colours turn the monarch's face into a constellation of pinks and blues, while the tree shimmers like a pixelated screen. Early reviews suggest it is neither reverent nor mocking, but something rarer: a conversation between two men who understand patience and persistence.
But the celebration extends beyond a single artwork. Museums across the UK are hosting special Hockney displays. The National Portrait Gallery has curated a room of his lesser-known prints. The Tate will screen a documentary featuring his daily walks through the Yorkshire Wolds. Even the London Underground has got involved, covering the walls of Gloucester Road station with a massive reproduction of his 2012 work "The Arrival of Spring". It is a rare, cheerful takeover of public space, and photographs of commuters lost in the colour fields are already circulating on social media.
There is, however, a quiet melancholy to the festivities. Hockney has been physically frail for years, using a walking stick and relying on assistants for large-scale pieces. His hearing has deteriorated, forcing him to use caption glasses during interviews. Yet his mind remains razor-sharp, and his output has not slowed. He continues to draw daily on his iPad, posting sketches of his dogs and garden to Instagram. It is a potent reminder that creativity is not a function of youth but of will.
The cultural establishment has been quick to frame Hockney's legacy in broad terms. "He taught us to see colour where we saw grey," remarked a critic from The Guardian. But the artist himself, when asked about his legacy in a rare interview this morning, simply shrugged. "I just like looking," he said. "The looking is the point."
For the common person, Hockney's appeal may be simpler. In an age of algorithmic art and deepfakes, his work feels stubbornly handmade, even when executed on a tablet. He has never abandoned the belief that a painting can capture a truth about a moment. That faith, expressed through his relentless experiments with perspective and pigment, has given us a visual diary of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The King's tribute is not an endpoint but a punctuation mark. Hockney may be the greatest living artist, but his greatest work, one suspects, is still being drawn. As he told the monarch over lunch: "The best thing about getting old is you know when something is good." Today, we all know.
