After that, he went on to the Bradford School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. And since his first retrospective exhibition at London's Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1970 when he was 33, Hockney has continued to attract widespread critical and public attention.

Drawing on many different sources including popular imagery and the works of old and modern masters, Hockney's subjects are the traditional themes of art-still life, portraiture and landscape-and his principal obsession is with representation and perspective.

Lin Han, one of the founders of the gallery, says: "Two years ago, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And while browsing the exhibition of David Hockney, because of the massive human traffic, we (him and another founder Lei Wanying) were pushed to move forward, and my feet kept stepping on others' shoes."

"But even in that kind of condition, we were still stunned. And at the time we thought, how wonderful it could be if one day, by one chance, we could present Hockney's works in our gallery in Beijing."

So when the chance finally came and the Tate, a family of four art museums in London, was finally convinced to cooperate, the new space of the gallery was constructed in strict accordance with international standards for a museum, with advanced air cleaning system and lights.