Do Remember They Can’t Cancel the Spring.

I had a print of David Hockney’s 1961 The Fourth Love Painting on my bedroom wall as a teenager. Its playfully precise nod to W.H. Auden was exactly what I needed at the time: romantic, funny, oddly practical, and completely modern. It sparked a lifelong fascination with Hockney’s journey as an artist.

But I have always loved his work for its fearless colour, its visual intelligence and the sheer, infectious pleasure he found in the act of making. There was never anything dutiful about Hockney. He painted as if looking itself was a form of appetite.

This came full circle when I recently bought a copy of his Yorkshire sketchbook. I can lose hours simply turning the pages. With just a few seemingly effortless brushstrokes, he captures immense space, shifting light, and the quiet atmosphere of the landscape. It is breathtakingly distilled.