A view fit for a queen
Westminster Abbey gets Hockney-designed window
LONDON A stained-glass window by ar tist David Hockney, based on a design he sketched on an iPad, was unveiled Wednesday amid the mar ble and monuments of London’s ancient Westminster Abbey.
The Queen’s Window was commissioned to celebr ate the long r eign of Queen Elizabeth II and depicts a landscape of blossoming hawthor n tr ees in hues of blue, gr een, yellow, or ange, pink and r ed.
The 81-year -old Br itish ar tist, known for his depictions of sundappled Los Angeles swimming pools and wooded English hills, took inspir ation fr om the monar ch’s love of the countr yside and the landscape of his native county of Yor kshir e.
The window above the abbey’s nor th tr ansept is a str ikingly moder n addition to the building wher e Br itish monar chs have been cr owned and bur ied for mor e than 1,000 year s.
“I didn’t want a figur ative or her aldic thing at all,” said Dean of Westminster John Hall, who dismissed some of the older stained glass windows in the abbey as “vulgar ” and “ghastly.”
Hall appr oached Hockney because he is “the most celebr ated ar tist alive” and a Br itish national tr easur e who has been named by the queen a Companion of Honour , an awar d limited to 65 distinguished people.
“He told me he couldn’t do it for six months because he was busy,” Hall said. “He sent me a sketch the next day.”
Hockney created the design— evocative of Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall—o nani Pad, his favourite drawing tool. The window was constructed by stained glass experts at Barley Studio in York, northern England.
Glass artist Helen Whittaker, who worked on the window, said she hoped it would make people realize that stained glass is much more than just“religious wallpaper .”
“Stained glass has always been seen as a lesser art int heart world, so for him to put it on the map as a 21 st-century art is a real plus for our profession ,” Whittaker said.
It’s a new medium for Hockney, who ina seven-decade career has embraced drawing, painting, print making, photo collage and video.
Based in Los Angeles, he is arguably the world’ s greatest living artist, and is certainly one of the most prized. One of his L.A. pool paintings is being auctioned by Christie’ s in November, with a pr e-sale estimate of $80 million.
Hockney had a minor stroke in 2012, but is still working—and continues to r ail against smoking ban sand other governmental intrusions.
“I’m still smoking ,” he told a wellwisher at the abbey on Wednesday. “I’m still living.”