David Hockney may or may not be the most famous living artist. He’s easily the most articulate. He’s also immediately identifiable, with his thatch of white hair (formerly bleached blond), oversize glasses, penchant for cheerfully loud clothes, and the furry vowels of his Yorkshire accent.
Add in seemingly inexhaustible energy and a bear-cub boyishness that Hockney retains after more than half a century of art-world celebrity — he turns 80 next year — and you have a can’t-miss documentary subject. That’s not even factoring in the visual vibrance of his art, the on-location opportunities afforded by Southern California (where’s he’s lived since the mid-’60s), and a forthright gayness that made him a trailblazer half a century ago.
So Randall Wright’s “Hockney” has many pleasures to offer. It’s a treat to linger over such Hockney works as “A Bigger Splash” (the ultimate LA painting?), the Polaroid collage “Pearblossom Highway,” and the double portrait “Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy.” We learn that the reason a shag carpet covers Ossie Clark’s toes in that painting is because Hockney couldn’t get his feet right. We also learn that it was a Clairol TV ad on Hockney’s first visit to the United States that inspired him to dye his hair. If he’s any example, blonds really do have more fun.
Whether talking about painting, Hollywood, the nature of seeing, the best way to ride double-decker buses as a boy in Bradford, England (always go up top and sit in front), photography, friendship, music, or trying to get beefcake magazines through US customs way back when (good luck with that!), Hockney’s a pleasure to listen to.
We also hear from Hockney’s sister, various friends, his London gallery owner, and fellow artists Don Bachardy and Ed Ruscha. Ruscha tells a very funny story about Hockney’s unapologetic fondness for smoking.
That we don’t hear more from Ruscha is one of the documentary’s flaws. Hockney, the subject, is like a great painting. “Hockney,” the documentary, is a pretty plain frame.
Wright’s quirks get wearying. He’s fond of phallic shots of palm trees, and Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” gets played multiple times on the soundtrack. It’s a marvelous rendition — but what’s the significance? Its unexplained presence is indication of a scattershot quality to the documentary, as it jumps around from period to period, place to place (Bradford, London, LA, the Hamptons), even medium to medium. The sections on Hockney’s work as photographer and set designer make you long for more. A documentary need not have a narrator, or be structured chronologically, but here either, or both, would have helped. Having planted us up top and in front on the bus, Wright doesn’t stick to any sort of route.
★
★
½
HOCKNEY
Directed by Randall Wright. At Museum of Fine Arts, May 21 and various dates through May 29. 113 minutes. Unrated (a couple of casual uses of the f-word, some equally casual views of male nudity fore and aft).
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.