DAVID HOCKNEY : A TABLE

David Hockney was born on July 9, 1937, in Bradford, England, to Laura and Kenneth Hockney. The Hockneys -strict Methodists- were, as David said, a "radical working class family."

Hockney was always considered an eccentric in Bradford. He spent afternoons at Sunday School drawing cartoons of Jesus, much to his teachers' dismay. Like his father, a conscientious objector, he worked as a medical orderly in hospitals as his National Service in the 1950s.

In 1953, Hockney enrolled in the College of Art of Bradford and began painting with oils, his favorite medium. In 1957, Hockney took the National Diploma in Design Examination. He graduated with honors and then enrolled in the Painting School of the Royal College in London two years later, where and when he would gain national attention as an artist. In the summer of 1961, Hockney traveled to New York for the first time where he befriended Andy Warhol and Dennis Hopper.

Later he moved to Los Angeles, California spending much of his day at Santa Monica pier, to watch and admire the beautiful boys that seemed to be at the beach every day of the year.

In 1964, he experienced his first true romance with a nineteen-year-old student named Peter Schlesinger who became a favorite subject of Hockney's, and the many drawings of him show the informal intimacy of the two. His art is marked by the ideas of naturalism.

Since he burst upon the art scene in the middle of the Sixties, David Hockney has been one of Britain's most successful painters. To mark the artist's 50th birthday in 1988, London's Tate Gallery staged a major retrospective of Hockney's work.

Estimated between £350,000 and £500,000, This "Table" fetched £825,250 ($1,644,724) in June 2008 on auction at Sotheby's in London. It is an acrylic on canvas 60 x 60in. (152.4 x 152.4m.) painted in 1967.

David Hockney, is now based in Yorkshire, United Kingdom. He was made a in 1997 and is also a Royal Academician.