The Daily Telegraph

Hockney used ipad to create Queen’s stained glass window

- By Daily Telegraph Reporter

DAVID HOCKNEY has revealed he used an ipad to design a stained-glass window covered in hawthorn blossom for Westminste­r Abbey.

The British artist is designing the 20ft-high window to celebrate the Queen’s reign, which is now longer than that of Queen Victoria.

Hockney has been given “free rein” over the design, and has previously said he was planning to create “a landscape full of blossom that’s a celebratio­n every year.” In a recent interview with The New York Times, the artist revealed the subject of the window’s lush floral scene will be English hawthorn blossom but it is thought to be a semiabstra­ct depiction.

He also revealed he had composed the entire design on his ipad. The Bradford-born painter, often described as the country’s greatest living artist, is well known for experiment­ing with different ways of making art – drawing, painting and using the Apple tablet.

The 20ft x 6ft window, one of the church’s few remaining clear ones, will be known as The Queen’s Window and is in the north transept of the gothic abbey. The cost is being covered by two anonymous benefactor­s. Westminste­r Abbey said Hockney would largely have artistic control, with guidance from the Dean and Chapter and the Westminste­r Abbey Fabric Commission who deal with changes to the historic building.

The Very Rev Dr John Hall, The Dean of Westminste­r, came up with the idea of approachin­g Hockney to help celebrate the Queen’s reign.

The design will then be transferre­d into stained glass by the Barley Studio in York in collaborat­ion with him.

The window is due to be unveiled in June 2018, to coincide with the opening of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries in the abbey’s medieval triforium, which runs 70ft above the abbey floor.

The last commission for a window at the abbey came in 2013, in honour of the 60th anniversar­y of the Queen’s Coronation.

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