Hockney’s touch of glass at the Abbey... drawn on his iPad!
DAVID Hockney’s first ever stained glass window has been unveiled – at the very centre of Britain’s spiritual life.
Installed in the north transept of Westminster Abbey, the sunlight streams through the vivid creation by one of the country’s greatest living artists.
The design of yellow, red, blue, pink, orange and green, depicting hawthorn blossom, was commissioned to celebrate the Queen’s reign.
In stark contrast to the 1,000-year-old abbey, Hockney designed the tribute using an iPad tablet computer. ‘The iPad is back-lit like a window, it’s a natural thing to use,’ he said.
The Queen’s Window depicts the landscapes of Hockney’s Yorkshire birthplace and is said to reflect the Queen’s love of the countryside. As he unveiled it yesterday, he said she had yet to see the window, adding: ‘I hope she’ll like it.’
The 81-year-old artist, who recently broke his own auction record with a £21.1million canvas, said he decided to feature hawthorn in the design because it is ‘a rather celebratory thing’.
Westminster Abbey said that the result ‘reflects the Queen as a countrywoman and her widespread delight in, and yearning for, the countryside’.
The Dean of Westminster, the Very Rev Dr John Hall, said: ‘It is a modern jewel that will shine for 1,000 years and more in our most ancient abbey, our church of national celebration. It is a magnificent national treasure which we are lucky to have been given.’
Helen Whittaker from Barley Studio in York, which created the window, said of working with Hockney: ‘He’s incredibly exciting because he takes risks. The image is very much the 21st century.’