To celebrate the career of one of the most influential artists of the modern world, Tate Britain will be hosting one of its biggest exhibitions yet with a retrospective look at the extensive work of David Hockney as he reaches his milestone 80th birthday next year.

David HockneyDavid Hockney to celebrate his 80th birthday with major Tate show

It will no doubt be a sell-out event for the London gallery as it aims to display six decades of work from Hockney including his self-portraits and his swimming pool pieces from the 60s and 70s, his Yorkshire landscapes and more recent iPad etchings. Spaces are even being kept for any work Hockney might produce in the meantime, which means it could be a truly unpredictable experience for Hockney fans.

'It has been a pleasure to revisit works I made decades ago, including some of my earliest paintings. Many of them seem like old friends to me now', said the Bradford-born pop artist in a statement, who had minimal involvement in Tate Britain's exhibition preparation, merely offering opinions and suggestions here and there. 'We're looking back over a lifetime with this exhibition, and I hope, like me, people will enjoy seeing how the roots of my new and recent work can be seen in the developments over the years.'

More: Read our review of the 'Hockney' documentary

Hockney's last big show featuring iPad landscapes at the Royal Academy broke the record for most visitors to a UK gallery exhibition in the 21st century as viewers reached 600,000. With Tate Britain's upcoming event being toted as the 'world's most extensive retrospective', visitor numbers are expected to double.

'David Hockney is without doubt one of Britain's greatest living artists', said Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson. 'His practice is both consistent, in its pursuit of core concerns, while also wonderfully diverse. Hockney's impact on post-war art, and culture more generally, is inestimable, and this is a fantastic opportunity to see the full trajectory of his career to date.'

The exhibition is set to be on display from February 9th until May 29th 2017 and will then be showcased at Paris' Centre Pompidou and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.