Ed Sheeran has said it was an “absolute honour” spending time with his childhood art hero David Hockney.

The Shape Of You singer shared his joy at meeting Hockney, considered one of Britain’s greatest living artists, in a message posted on Instagram to his more than 14 million followers.

Alongside a photograph of himself and Hockney, Sheeran wrote: “Absolute honour to get to spend some time with one of my favourite artists of all time, David Hockney, yesterday.

“He was my first introduction as a child to art that I really connected to and I can’t quite believe we got to eat pie together and talk about Yorkshire.”

Hockney, 80, was recently the focus of an exhibition at the Tate Britain, where more than 250 pieces celebrating his achievements across painting, drawing, photography and video were on display.

David Hockney retrospective
People looking at a David Hockney iPad painting displayed on a digital canvas at Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush, London to mark the opening of his Tate Britain retrospective.

According to the Tate, the retrospective was the biggest-ever of his work to date and was one of the most popular shows in the gallery’s history.

It became the fastest pre-selling Tate exhibition, with almost 35,000 advance tickets sold ahead of its February opening.

Hockney is renowned for his portraits which include Mr And Mrs Clark And Percy, as well as his double portrait of novelist Christopher Isherwood with artist Don Bachardy.