David Hockney’s legacy lies not only in colour, pleasure and innovation, but in the way he challenged class prejudice, homophobia, ageism and cultural gatekeeping by insisting that seeing itself is active, generous and political.

Born in Bradford and shaped by northern art-school discipline, David Hockney brought a working-class, almost punk refusal to British art: do the work, trust the eye, do not ask for approval.

Hockney made success look effortless: all colour, good humour, great glasses, cigarettes and smoky charm. But for a young gay artist from a northern mill town, nothing about that journey was effortless.

Hockney knew what it was to be judged before he was properly seen. In Britain, class prejudice travels through accent. His Bradford voice carried history, poetry and bite, but at the Royal College of Art in London it was mocked. Looking at the drawings of his fellow students who laughed, he simply outdrew them.

Bradford educated Hockney. The north was not a cultural desert waiting to be rescued by London, but a place of serious art schools, teachers, makers and visual traditions. What it lacked was not talent or discipline, but the automatic authority granted to those formed by privilege.

Hockney refused the lot assigned to him. He opened gates for those who followed, showing that art college, success and cultural authority were not reserved for those born inside old networks of taste and confidence. His........

© Pearls and Irritations