Question 1

True or false: Hockney refused a knighthood twice, preferring to remain 'Mr. Hockney'.

Accepted Answer

True. He declined a knighthood in 1990 and again in 2012, stating he didn't believe in such honors and preferred his simple title.

Question 2

True or false: David Hockney painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Accepted Answer

False. The Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, not Hockney.

Question 3

True or false: David Hockney was born in 1937 in Bradford, England.

Accepted Answer

True. He was born on July 9, 1937 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.

Question 4

True or false: Hockney once painted a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for a British postage stamp series.

Accepted Answer

False. Though a celebrated British artist, Hockney never painted the Queen. The stamp portrait was by other artists like Lucian Freud and Ralph Heimans.

Question 5

True or false: David Hockney created a 50-foot-long artwork using an iPad in 2011.

Accepted Answer

True. He used the Brushes app on his iPad to create 'The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011,' a massive digital drawing printed on paper, measuring roughly 52 feet in length.

Question 6

True or false: David Hockney created the photomontage technique known as 'joiners' in the 1980s.

Accepted Answer

True. He used multiple Polaroid photos to assemble composite images, a method he called joiners.

Question 7

True or false: David Hockney's painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90 million in 2018.

Accepted Answer

True. It fetched $90.3 million at Christie's, a record for a living artist at the time.

Question 8

True or false: David Hockney designed the stage for a famous opera at the Metropolitan Opera.

Accepted Answer

True. David Hockney created sets and costumes for Stravinsky's 'The Rake's Progress,' which debuted at Glyndebourne and later at the Metropolitan Opera in 1981, showcasing his distinctive visual style.

Question 9

True or false: Hockney painted his iconic 'A Bigger Splash' entirely from memory without any photographic reference.

Accepted Answer

False. He used photographs and sketches of Los Angeles swimming pools. The painting's frozen splash was inspired by a photo, not pure memory.

Question 10

True or false: David Hockney invented the Polaroid camera.

Accepted Answer

False. Edwin Land invented the Polaroid camera in 1948. Hockney famously used Polaroid photos for his joiners.

Question 11

True or false: David Hockney is a trained architect who designed buildings in Los Angeles.

Accepted Answer

False. Hockney studied art, not architecture. He painted buildings like the Hollywood Hills but never designed them.

Question 12

True or false: David Hockney designed the cover for The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Accepted Answer

False. The cover was created by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, not David Hockney.

Question 13

True or false: David Hockney designed sets for the opera The Rake's Progress at Glyndebourne.

Accepted Answer

True. In 1975 he created the sets and costumes for Stravinsky's opera at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Question 14

True or false: Hockney's first major exhibition was at the Louvre in Paris when he was just 25.

Accepted Answer

False. His first major show was at London's Royal College of Art in 1962. The Louvre exhibition came much later in his career, in 1984.

Question 15

True or false: Hockney was a pioneer of using photocopiers as an art medium in the 1980s.

Accepted Answer

True. He created 'joiners' and photocollages using color copiers, and even produced large-scale prints with the technology, calling it a 'painting machine'.

Question 16

True or false: Hockney was legally blind for several years due to a rare eye condition.

Accepted Answer

False. He suffered from severe hearing loss, not blindness. He used hearing aids and even painted with his left hand after a stroke, but his vision remained fine.

David Hockney Trivia Questions