Portraits of Artists

Portraits of Artists

9 Episodes

The best films about artists don’t just document their lives and practices, but are themselves acts of artistic interpretation. Eschewing conventional biography in favor of formal experimentation, these boldly conceived works mirror the creativity of their subjects through the language of film. Using the aesthetic worlds of visionaries like Pablo Picasso (THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO), R. Crumb (CRUMB), Jean-Michel Basquiat (JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD), and David Lynch (DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE) as jumping-off points for their own free-flowing exploration, these films stand as fascinating dialogues between subject and filmmaker.

Portraits of Artists
  • A Bigger Splash

    Episode 1

    Directed by Jack Hazan • 1973 • United Kingdom
    Starring David Hockney

    This intimate and innovative documentary about English-born, California-based artist David Hockney and his work honors its subject through creative risk-taking. Director Jack Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction...

  • Notebook on Cities and Clothes

    Episode 2

    Directed by Wim Wenders • 1989 • West Germany, France

    Wim Wenders’s diary film investigates the similarities between his approach to filmmaking and the work of celebrated Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, who, in the early 1980s, revolutionized the fashion world with his avant-garde silhouettes ...

  • The Mystery of Picasso

    Episode 3

    Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot • 1956 • France
    Starring Pablo Picasso

    In 1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot joined forces with his friend Pablo Picasso to make an entirely new kind of art film, “a film that could capture the moment and the mystery of creativity.” Together, they devised an innovative...

  • My Architect

    Episode 4

    Directed by Nathaniel Kahn • 2003 • United States

    Louis I. Kahn, who died in 1974, was one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, but he left behind an illegitimate son, Nathaniel, and a personal life of secrets and broken promises. MY ARCHITECT takes us on a heartbreaking yet humo...

  • Anselm

    Episode 5

    Directed by Wim Wenders • 2023 • Germany
    Starring Anselm Kiefer, Anton Wenders, Daniel Kiefer

    In ANSELM, Wim Wenders creates a hypnotic portrait of Anselm Kiefer, one of the most innovative and important painters and sculptors of our time. Shot in 6K resolution—and released theatrically in 3D—th...

  • F for Fake

    Episode 6

    Directed by Orson Welles • 1975 • France, Iran, Germany

    Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In F FOR FAKE, a free-form sort-of documentary by Orson Welles, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully reengages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous lines between illu...

  • David Lynch: The Art Life

    Episode 7

    Directed by Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm • 2016 • United States, Denmark

    A rare glimpse into the mind of one of cinema’s most enigmatic visionaries, DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE offers an absorbing portrait of the artist, as well as an intimate encounter with the man himself. ...

  • Routine Pleasures

    Episode 8

    Directed by Jean-Pierre Gorin • 1986 • United States

    What do a club devoted to model trains and the legendary film critic and painter Manny Farber have in common? These two lines intersect in Jean-Pierre Gorin's lovely and distinctly American film, which takes as its subject the desire to re-cre...

  • Christo’s Valley Curtain

    Episode 9

    Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Ellen Giffard • 1974 • United States

    Nominated for an Academy Award, CHRISTO'S VALLEY CURTAIN celebrates the Bulgarian-born artist's dramatic hanging of a huge orange curtain between two Colorado mountains. Since the late 1950's, Christo's large-sca...