David Hockney's 'A Bigger Splash' Documentary: A Holistic Portrait of the Artist and Swinging London

Following the death of David Hockney in London in June 2026, attention has turned to Jack Hazan's 1973 documentary 'A Bigger Splash', a pioneering docufiction that offers an intimate and melancholic portrait of the artist and his circle. Hazan, a renowned cinematographer, filmed Hockney and his friends over three years with a 35mm Cameflex camera, blending documentary techniques with dramatizations. The film chronicles Hockney's creative and emotional crisis between 1971 and 1973, including his breakup with photographer Peter Schlesinger and the gestation of his iconic painting 'Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)' (1972). Despite receiving an 'X' rating in the UK for male nudity and explicit gay sex scenes, the film was praised at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival and later won the Silver Leopard at Locarno. Restored in 2019, it is now hailed by Martin Scorsese, Sight & Sound, and the British Film Institute as a masterpiece of British cinema. The documentary also features key figures from Hockney's life: designers Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, sculptor Mo McDermott, curator Henry Geldzahler, and art dealer John Kasmin. The film captures the end of Swinging London, symbolized by the closure of Kasmin Gallery in 1972. Hockney's painting 'Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)' later set a record at auction in 2018, selling for $90.3 million at Christie's. The documentary remains a holistic mosaic of a transformative era in art and culture.