Hockney and his contemporaries deliberately took an anti-intellectual stance and wilfully challenged the college hierarchy. There were many clashes between the stuffy posh tutors of the RCA and a post-war generation of talented and ambitious students, often from working or lower-middle class backgrounds. They were surrounded by a newly colourful mass media, tv satire and a burgeoning popular culture which they were keen to integrate into their work. The condescending RCA old guard, as did so many other establishment figures, felt threatened. No one had challenged their professional status before let alone completely disregard it.

The Principal of the RCA, Robin Darwin described his own personal feelings: “The student of today is less easy to teach because the chips on his shoulders, which in some cases are virtually professional epaulettes, make him less ready to learn . . . This no doubt reflects the catching philosophy of the ‘beat’ generation. When the RCA would not let Hockney graduate if he did not complete an assignment of a life drawing of a live model, he painted Life Painting For A Diploma in protest. He also refused to write an essay required for the final examination, saying he should be assessed solely on his artworks. The RCA backed down and awarded the diploma.

Hockney believes that his time at the RCA was the closest he ever came to producing pop art. In 1964 he left for California believing this would allow him much more freedom both personally and artistically so he would not be bound by a ‘movement’. Of that time, he said: “Within a week of arriving . . . in this strange big city, not knowing a soul, I’d passed my driving test, bought a car, driven to Las Vegas and won some money, got myself a studio, started painting all in a week. And I thought; it’s just how I imagined it would be.”

You can find out much more about Hockney at the incredible Hockney Foundation website here and buy his artworks from mainstream galleries here.