The art world paused this week to bid farewell to David Hockney, the man who painted Britain in swimming pools and proved that an iPad could be as mighty as a brush. His funeral, held in the East Yorkshire countryside he so loved, was a restrained affair. No paparazzi. No celebrities jostling for position. Just close family, a few friends, and the sort of drizzly grey sky that Hockney would have painted with a shock of colour.
It was a fitting end for a man who, despite global fame, never lost his Yorkshire grit. The modest ceremony at a local crematorium stood in stark contrast to the splash he made in popular culture. Hockney was the pop art provocateur who gave us 'A Bigger Splash', who turned California into a canvas of shimmering blue and who, in his later years, found solace in the landscapes of his youth.
For the mourners, the loss is personal. 'He was Uncle David to us, not the icon,' one relative was overheard saying. 'He'd still sketch on a napkin if the mood took him.' That human element, the man behind the myth, was what those gathered remembered. Not the exhibitions at the Royal Academy, not the record-breaking auction prices, but the quiet dedication to seeing the world anew through coloured pencil and digital paint.
The cultural shift is palpable. With Hockney's passing, we lose a link to a more optimistic age of British creativity. He was of a generation that believed in the power of beauty, even when the world seemed grey. His legacy is not just in galleries but in every artist who picks up an iPad to draw, every swimmer who feels the sun on their back in a chlorinated pool, every Yorkshireman who looks at the Wolds and sees magic.
As the funeral cortege left, a single rainbow appeared over the fields. Hockney would have loved the cliché. He would have painted it, too. Perhaps he already has.
On the streets of Bridlington and beyond, people are taking stock. 'He made me proud to be from Yorkshire,' a local cafe owner told me. 'He showed us that our ordinary views were extraordinary.' That is the mark of a true artist: not just to create, but to change how we see. And in that, David Hockney succeeded beyond measure.