David Hockney – a seminal British artist, purveyor of colourful pop art.

He also is a draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer.

For years the critics savaged his art referring to it as eye candy, art without consequences – a perspective that has changed dramatically.

Today the critics review his art with a new eye.

Here is the New York Times with its perspective of a major Hockney show at New York’s Museum of Modern art.

“…Mr. Hockney, at 80, is not Jasper Johns or Gerhard Richter. But he has his own greatness, which flows from openly following his own desires — including his attraction to other men — while rigorously exploring the ways art and life feed each other, visually and emotionally. Full disclosure, forthright joy and forward motion are the dynamos of his art, which in my book at least, gives him an edge over Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.”

Likewise his digital photography is now being widely accepted for its story-telling abilities.