David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture

Seven years' worth of David Hockney's work are exhibited in a major show at the Royal Academy which includes film for the first time. The first of the London 2012 Festival Countdown events and part of the Cultural Olympiad, David Hockney: A Bigger Picture spans a 50-year period to show the artist's long exploration and fascination with the depiction of landscape. A poster for the show at the Royal Academy reads: "All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally" - a glancing blow at fellow artists, Damien Hirst chief among them, who use assistants to do their work. He may well do all his own works but the 74 year old artist is clearly not afraid to embrace new technologies. The Royal Academy show of around 150 works includes paintings, drawings, sketchbooks, and drawings made on his iPad as well as a series of new films produced using 18 cameras which create large moving images across multiple screens. Returning to his native Yorkshire a few years ago after living in California for over 30 years, Hockney has been living and working from his late mother's house in Bridlington, taking inspiration from the landscape he knew in his youth to produce these larger than life-sized landscapes.