It isn’t often that a contemporary artist finds their work occupying 12 rooms of the top museum of British art .

But David Hockney is a rare creator – and the show at Tate Britain opening on Thursday has become the fastest selling exhibition in the gallery’s history.

The 79-year-old artist’s 60-year career has embraced drawing, painting, printmaking, photography and lately – digital drawing on smartphones and tablets.

His depictions of sun-dappled swimming pools in Los Angeles and English forests and hills – are among the best-known images in contemporary art.

The Hockney retrospective also comes with a surprise from the tabloid newspaper The Sun – which invited the iconic artist to redesign its red masthead one day last week – boasting that this meant a “free Hockney for every reader.”

Hockney’s re-design included cartoon-style sunrays and shadows – created on his   iPad.