Born 9 July, 1937, Bradford, YorkshireHockney attended Bradford College of Art 1953-57, and The Royal College of Art in 1959, where his fellow-student was R.B. Kitaj, who was to have a lasting influence on his work. In 1960 he visited the Picasso exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, since which time Picassos work has continued to hold a strong fascination for him. In his early pictures Hockney drew quite openly on current artistic styles such as Abstract Expressionism, the painting of Dubuffet, Art Brut and anonymous graffiti. Hockney soon acquired an outstanding reputation as an artist and received an award on completing his studies at the Royal College of Art. In 1963 he accepted a commission from the Sunday Times to collect material for a series of illustrations.. In the same year in Los Angeles he met Henry Geldzahler, the curator of twentieth century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who later became a friend and promoter of his art. He moved to California soon after, where he has lived ever since, with the exception of a number of years spent in London and Paris The California light, the size of the country and the specific life-style influenced Hockney and inspired him to develop new themes such as the Shower Pictures (1963). These were followed by his famous Swimming Pool pictures, with their hedonistic atmosphere and intriguing treatment of the movement of water.From 1974 Hockney has worked extensively in theatre design, producing notable designs for operas such as The Rakes Progress, The Magic Flute, Oedipus Rex, Tristan und Isolde, Die Frau ohne Schatten and ballets which include Parade, The Rite of Spring and The Nightingale.At the end of the seventies Hockney started making photo-collages of countless Polaroid photographs taken from different angles, as a means of achieving an intensified visual awareness. Since the end of the eighties, Hockney has increasingly devoted himself to new media, producing four-colour copy prints and abstract computer graphics.