So, when, in 1963, a year after he had graduated from the RCA with a gold medal, Hockney’s first solo exhibition at Kasmin’s gallery sold out, he decided to spend some of his earnings on a trip to the US. And top of his list of destinations was the ‘promised land’ of California – in particular, LA.

“I instinctively knew I was going to like it,” he recalled later. “And as I flew over San Bernardino and saw the swimming pools and the houses and everything and the sun, I was more thrilled than I have ever been in arriving in any city.”

Making a splash

Almost immediately, Hockney – who, arguably, has done more than any artist to fashion LA’s visual identity – sensed an opportunity: he recognised that the city was uncharted territory that he could conquer as a painter.

“There were no paintings of Los Angeles,” he once explained. “People then didn’t even know what it looked like. And when I was there, they were still finishing up some of the freeways. I remember seeing, within the first week, a ramp of freeway going into the air, and I suddenly thought: ‘My God, this place needs its Piranesi [the 18th-Century Italian artist who executed countless views of Rome]; Los Angeles could have a Piranesi, so here I am!”