David Hockney

The word 'iconic' is bandied about a lot these days, often with little or no attention paid to its actual meaning. Well, we're going to use it again in the next sentence. David Hockney is iconic. With his oversized blue cardies, floppy blond fringe and horn-rimmed glasses, Hockney's image is that of the perennial schoolboy.

But of course he's not just a funny looking fellow. He's also one of Britain's most important artists of the Twentieth Century. Alongside Peter Blake, Hockney is probably Britain's most significant contribution to the primarily American movement, Pop Art.

But more than Blake, Hockney has the ability to constantly reinvent his style and methods. From childlike love paintings to complex photomontages via his iconic (and again) ad-flat emotionless swimming pool works, Hockney has continued to startle, bemuse and intrigue in equal measure.

In 2001, Hockney and physicist Charles M Falco came up with a highly controversial theory of art history which argued that the great realists of the Renaissance actually employed a variety of optical aids. There is still heated debate about the theory to this day.

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