David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life
Royal Academy, London

For summer the Royal Academy’s Sackler Wing galleries have come out in a bright new livery of cherry red. The paint job is in honour of “82 Portraits and 1 Still-life” (until 2 October), the latest artistic tour de force from David Hockney.

A composite portrait of the artist’s circle of friends, the exhibition consists of a series of uniform 4ft x 3ft canvases hung in the chronological order in which they were painted. The subjects are all shown seated in the same yellow-upholstered chair against the same backdrop of sky-blue wall and sea-green floor, or vice versa.