Widely considered Britain’s most popular artist, David Hockney is a global sensation with exhibitions in London, New York, Paris and beyond attracting millions of visitors worldwide. The latest film in the Exhibition on Screen series allows up-close access to this 21st-century master and his two recent blockbuster exhibitions: at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and features expert insights from art critics Martin Gayford and Jonathan Jones, and Edith Devaney (Senior Contemporary Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts) who twice sat for Hockney to paint.

     Exhibition on Screen presents David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts: A Bigger Picture 2012 & 82 Portraits and One Still Life 2016. The film screens Sunday, May 6, 1:00pm, doors open 12:30pm. Tickets are $15, available online at www.arenatheater.org or at the door.

     Including intimate and in-depth interviews with Hockney the film offers rare insights into the man behind such iconic works as A Bigger Splash and A Closer Grand Canyon. In conversation with Tim Marlow (A.D. at the Royal Academy of Arts), Hockney reveals anecdotes from across his artistic and personal life - from his  first  trip  abroad  to Egypt in 1963, to the effects of the death of his close friend Jonathan Silver in 1997, right up to today.

     The film also provides a rare chance to explore two of Hockney's landmark exhibitions from his late career, guided by the exhibitions' curatorial team and the artist himself. A Royal Academician since 1991, Hockney has a close relationship with the institution, creating both exhibitions specifically for the gallery spaces and thus making them entirely unique shows.

     For A Bigger Picture Hockney returned to his native Yorkshire. This return to home was cathartic for Hockney and saw him capture the changing landscape through the seasons, using new techniques, not least iPad drawings and video. Four years later for 82 Portraits and One Still Life, Hockney also adopted a new mode of working, inviting sitters to his studio with a strict deadline of three days for each portrait. The 82 finished paintings are themselves one complete work.

     The film has a runtime of 85 minutes and is underwritten by Craig Gilliland and Lori Dotson of Spindrift Gallery.

© David Hockney.  Photo courtesy  of

 Jean- Pierre Gonçalves de Lima