David Hockney will feature in a new documentary directed by Randall Wright, the filmmaker who made the definitive film Lucian Freud: A Painted Life. The feature-length documentary will be released in the cinema in November, ahead of its television premiere sometime in 2015.
The film has been commissioned by the BBC, controller Kim Shillinglaw, said the film “will be a riveting and inspiring watch”. “David Hockney stands as one of Britain’s seminal and most important artists, and I’m delighted to be showing this major film on him on BBC Two.”
Hockney for the first time is opening up his personal archive, giving access to photographs, films, and unseen works of art. The film aims to be a “frank and unparalleled visual diary of his long life”. Mark Bell, head of arts commissioning for the BBC, called it an “unprecedented” portrait, “with unique access to his work, his archive and reminiscence from the people who know him best”.
David Hockney is one of Britain’s best loved artists. In 2012 the Yorkshire born,artist was appointed a member of the Order of Merit ,by the Queen, at Buckingham Palace. Born in Bradford in 1937, David Hockney attended Bradford School of Art before studying at the Royal College of Art from 1959 to 1962. Hockney’s stellar reputation was established while he was still a student; his work was featured in the exhibition Young Contemporaries, which heralded the birth of British Pop Art. He visited Los Angeles in the early 1960s and settled there soon after. He is closely associated with southern California and has produced a large body of work there over many decades. David Hockney was elected a Royal Academician in 1991.