David Hockney: Bradford's artistic genius who painted the things he loved

David Hockney: Bradford's artistic genius who painted the things he lovedJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleSam WoodhouseGetty ImagesDavid Hockney, who has died aged 88, was Britain's favourite artist - and a man of trenchant views, expressed in the broadest of Yorkshire vowels.A genius in practically every medium, he worked with paint, photographs and iPads. He did etchings, lithographs, even stained glass windows - equally at home working with the grandeur of opera design and the intimacy of pen and ink.A peroxide Bradford blond with round glasses and cheese-cutter hat, he set the art world alight in the 1960s, and packed out art galleries more than half a century later. In 2018, one of his swimming pool paintings sold for nearly £70 million at auction - a record for a living artist. But Hockney was surprised at the public enthusiasm for his work.He had simply followed one rule: "Paint the things you love".Getty ImagesDavid Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) on sale at Christie's in November 2018David Hockney was born on 9 July 1937. His father, Kenneth, was a conscientious objector who detested social injustice, nuclear weapons and smoking in equal measure. His mother, Laura, was the backbone of the family: strong-willed and devoutly Methodist.David was one five children; a tight-knit, loving unit jammed into a tiny terrace in Bradford. During bombing raids, they hid under the stairs clutching bibles. In 1940, one explosion flattened the street.He was single-minded and devoted to drawing. The wartime shortage of paper restricted his early efforts to the kitchen floor and hymn books in church. Getty ImagesHockney, pictured at work in the 1960s, spent long hours in the studio and was often haunted by the feeling that he wasn't getting enough doneLater, as a scholarship boy at Bradford Grammar, he refused to do any subject but Art."I am no good at science but I can draw," Hockney wrote in one...