Queen Elizabeth appoints David Hockney to 'painter slot' in Order of Merit, though he refused to paint her portrait and rejected a knighthood

Hockney, a smoker's rights activist, reacted to the news with, "No comment. Other than it's nice to know they are not prejudiced against the older smoker."
    According to the Manchester Guardian, Hockney recently turned down a request to paint a portrait of the Queen, saying he was too busy painting landscapes, and in 1990 he rejected a knighthood.

"I do not think life is about prizes," he told the Bradford Telegraph and Argus in 2003 when asked about his decision to refuse the KBE. "I put them all in the bottom drawer and leave them there. I don't value prizes of any sort. I value my friends. Prizes of any sort are a bit suspect."

     Members of the Order of Merit gather periodically for lunches at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, which are attended by the Queen as well as Prince Philip and Prince Charles, who are both OMs.

     Hockney joins the playwright Tom Stoppard, former Speaker Lady Boothroyd and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the worldwide web, who are already members of the order of merit.

The above trailer promotes the 1971 film A Bigger Splash, about Hockney, then well on his way to art world super-stardom. Filmmaker Jack Hazan followed Hockney "from London to New York to Los Angeles — capturing the artist as he struggles to create what would prove to be some of his most enduring works: those featuring Hockney's model and lover, Peter Schlesinger."

     Straddling the boundary between documentary and fiction, A BIGGER SPLASH tells the story of Hockney's breakup with Schlesinger and its effect on Hockney, his work, and his close circle of friends.

     Originally banned for a notorious scene of homosexual intimacy, this award-winning film, "at once precise and dreamlike," is a unique document of a time and place, a lifestyle, and the artistic process, unlike anything made before or since.