Director: Phil Grabsky
When you think of the artist David Hockney, your mind goes straight to those iconic 1960s portraits: cool, stylish and sun-soaked. First filmed in 2017, but re-launched to mark the death of Hockney earlier this year, Exhibition on Screen focuses not on Hockney’s back catalogue, but the art he was making in later life.
In his 80th year, Hockney was not only looking at the future, but continuing to shape his artistic legacy. The EOS films normally celebrate an artist of the past, but with Hockney, they had a unique opportunity to witness a modern master at work.
Hockney is interviewed by Tim Marlow in 2012 and 2016, to mark two seminal exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts. In the first, David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, Hockney returns to his native Yorkshire after the death of his mother. Seeing the landscape again, Hockney was inspired by the countryside, bathed in early morning light. Yorkshire changing through the seasons is captured through paint, pencil and film, merging tradition with technology.
The EOS cameras linger over the enormous paintings Hockney created – almost frieze-like in scale. Walking through the exhibition with Hockney, Marlow does an excellent job of gently prompting the artist, although Hockney needs little warming up. His sunny disposition, tempered with a sharply observant intelligence, comes shining through.
It is Hockney’s attachment to the new, the youthful, that is particularly joyous. On returning to California, Hockney revisited the art of the portrait. His subject would be friends and visitors to his studio. All painted in the same way, with a time allowance of just 3 days per painting. In 2016, the RA housed another Hockney exhibition: 82 Portraits and 1 Still Life. The playful quality of the portraits refer to his earlier paintings, but there is a freshness and spontaneity clearly visible: Hockney considers himself a work in progress, even in his eighties. Interviewed for the documentary, author Martin Gayford notes the “interrogative” aspect of Hockney in old age: not looking back, but re-evaluating the familiar.
The documentary portrays Hockney as an artist “in the round”, reaffirming his place in contemporary art history. Born in 1937, Bradford-born, working-class Hockney was a star student at the Royal College of Art. Intrigued by Hollywood films, Hockney moved to California in his twenties and never left. A key figure of the Pop Art generation, Hockney reminds us that when he started out, abstraction was king. Hockney’s instinct to go in his own direction paid off. While Hockney was undoubtedly an innovator, the documentary remarks on his debt to fellow artists: being inspired by Rembrandt’s skill as a draftsman; in his fearless use of colour, there is a nod to Matisse. His vitality is underpinned by an appreciation of the masters: this is what makes Hockney’s art feel substantial, not ephemeral.
While the documentary ruminates in its last moments about Hockney’s posthumous reputation (Hockney himself was non-committal), it is the artist’s sense of joy and curiosity that lingers. There could be no better tribute.
Exhibition on Screen: David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts is in cinemas now.
