The modern world is strangely short of genius; in David Hockney, the leading painter of our times, we have lost a genuine genius.

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David emerged like a shooting star from the Royal College in London in the 1960s, defiantly ignoring the trendy abstractionism of that period in favour of colourful, provocative pictures about sex, beauty and having fun.

Since then, his peroxide hair, colourful glasses and wildly checked suits have been part of popular culture, as well as serious art, all around the world.

He was almost ludicrously talented – one of those people with an innate ability to........

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