Fig. 1. The new Queen’s Window, designed by David Hockney, created by Barley Studio, in Westminster Abbey.
On October 2nd, a new stained-glass window designed by the artist David Hockney was dedicated by the Dean of Westminster, having recently been installed in the Abbey’s north transept. The so-called Queen’s Window commemorates the 65th year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The design is based around a vibrantly-coloured image of a blooming hawthorn: a tribute to the Queen’s love of nature, and, perhaps, a reference to the use by the Queen’s royal ancestor, Henry VII, of an emblem depicting the royal crown nestled in a hawthorn bush.
Hockney has flagged his use of an iPad in designing the window, noting that, being backlit, like stained glass itself, the device allowed him to understand how his design would appear once installed. A piece of glass on which Hockney painted his signature is incorporated into the window, but otherwise the design was translated into glass by a team headed by the stained glass artist Helen Whittaker, of Barley Studio, York.