The Arts on Film

Behind the canvas with a movie camera: you can almost smell the turpentine in these fascinating portraits of artists at work.

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," so it's said. So what about filming about art? Whatever the challenges, filmmakers have never been deterred from exploring other media in film - and for that we should give thanks. These films give us an often unique record of the artist - dancer or architect, painter or sculptor, musician, novelist or poet - at work and at leisure. They present artists speaking lucidly about their work. They preserve performances otherwise lost forever. And, perhaps best of all, they take us inside the creative process, allowing us to witness works of art emerging before our eyes.

110 items in this collection
A painterly profile of County Durham's brilliant miner-artist Tom McGuinness.

Mining Review 25th Year No. 9

A poetic portrait of sculptor Barbara Hepworth and the otherworldly Cornish landscapes which inspired her.

Figures in a Landscape

Impressionistic portrait of life as a dancer in London's Ballet Rambert.

Dancers

Spend a few intense minutes with Giacometti in his Paris studio and see him at work on his striking sculptures.

Giacometti

Filmed at the time Hockney was painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, this compelling study concentrates on the textures and light which surround the artist in his home and studio.

Portrait of David Hockney

Discover the 'name behind the hairstyle', in this essential portrait of the bard of Salford, aka John Cooper Clarke.

Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt

Cinema-goers escape their worries by stepping into the glorious Art Deco luxury of the Odeon picture palaces.

Odeon Cavalcade

Ken McMullen and Stuart Brisley consider the links between performance art and folk ritual.

Being and Doing

Matchstick men and so much more - the work and world of Lawrence Stephen Lowry, recorder of the industrial north.

L.S. Lowry - The Industrial Artist

A self-taught Lancashire artist reflects on the town that inspired his creative career.

Bill Brookes - Painter of Darwen

Perusing  body embellishment in the early eighties,  tattoo fans talk about their enthusiasm for staining skin long before it dominated Dalston.

Can I Have a Dragon Please?

Author of Gulliver's Travels faces trial by television

The Scandalous Parson

Playful experimental film about one of the most famous, widely reproduced paintings in the world.

Mona Lisa

An analysis of the use of photomontage to distort meaning and create subversive and oppositional art, exemplified by the work of Peter Kennard.

Photomontage Today: Peter Kennard

Katrina McPherson's dance film intimately tracks the frenetic movements of a solo dancer, accompanied by an electronic score by Philip Jeck.

Pace

Part of Wonderful London, the BFI National Archive's programme of restored London travelogues, filmed in the capital in the 1920s.

London's Free Shows

London swallowed up by the green belt? Fantasy and horror writer Jane Gaskell muses on how the future looks for the hippie generation.

Jane Gaskell

Anglia TV's Mike Robson visits eccentric British artist Rufus De Pinto at his home in Stradbroke, Suffolk.

Rufus De Pinto - Artist and Eccentric

Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister's masterly collage of the various people and classes of Britain - at home and at work, at war and at peace - is one of the great films of war-time Britain.

Listen to Britain

A peek inside the Munnings Art Museum in Dedham, Essex, a memorial to England's finest painter of horses, known as the artist who hated Picasso.

The Artist's House and His Works - Sir Alfred Munnings

At home with Brenda Chamberlain. The artist/writer from Bangor lived on Bardsey 1947-62 and is filmed there by a regular visitor to the island.

Island Artist

Join Spectrum as Ulster Television celebrate two rarities in Northern Irish art, orchids and an entirely female exhibition.

Raymond Piper and Creative Women

Figurative sculptor of the human form, Daphne Hardy Henrion's solo exhibition at the Old Fire Engine House in Ely, Cambs.  Anglia Television.

Exhibition of Sculptures by Daphne Hardy Henrion

Seamus Heaney on how writers help give a nation its sense of self

Seamus Heaney, A Sense of Ireland

Five poetic responses to war, from Michael Redgrave's reading of Henry V to a musical rendition of a 1950s folk classic.

War Poetry

Immerse yourself in the beautiful serenity of the Lake District and the poetry this treasured landscape inspired.

Lakeland Poets

Lenkiewicz and a relationship study on self portraiture.

Portrait of an Artist

Lenkiewicz takes people in with his exceptional art.

Robert Lenkiewicz and Vagrancy

Lenkiewicz is filmed talking about his projects.

Lenkiewicz and the Leaves were Full of Children

Self-confessed recluse admits to Living on the Brink.

Metafictional John Fowles

Bernard Leach offers an insight into his life's work.

Father of British Studio Pottery

Compelling personal stories from 13 artists as they wrestle with difficult questions during troubling times in Northern Ireland.

The Trouble with Art

"Why in the height of a world war, should there be this terrific interest in painting?"

Out of Chaos

Lutz Becker's innovative homage to the work of Kazimir Malevich uses one of his unrealised film scripts as the basis for a portrait of the artist and his theory of abstract art, Suprematism.

Malevitch Suprematism

Iconic images by photo-pioneer Eadweard Muybridge come to life in this striking video collage.

Muybridge Revisited

The artist discusses his inspiration, early education and enslavement by Cubism in an un-broadcast interview from the UTV archives.

Louis Le Brocquy

Meet the McCormick Players and experience one of Ireland's last travelling theatres before it falls victim to the TV epidemic.

The Portable Theatre

Capturing an image - a picture of an accomplished portrait painter at work.

Portrait by Emmanuel Levy

Song and dance folk hit the streets of Middlesbrough with a splash of international colour for the Tees-Side International Eisteddfod.

Inter Tie

A shot against time: the last ‘pitman painter' turns an unblinking eye on the near-vanished world of the County Durham coalfields.

Lifestyle: The Shapes of Cornish

“A bundle of nerves, no music, one black dress”: Scarlet O'Hara, a Geordie queen of comedy, looks back at her life of grit and glamour.

Laughing at Life

Brimham Rocks provides the perfect setting for an entrancing and hypnotic enactment of a primitive ritual in front of bemused sightseers.

Towers

Fascinating glimpses into the life and work of Alfred Wallis.

Alfred Wallis - Artist and Mariner

Historic fishing village of Polperro is mecca for artists

Artist Mecca of Polperro

Irish culture makes an ambitious leap in search of an audience beyond its own shores. How will London react to Ireland's new found confidence?

A Sense of Ireland

The writer and talker from North Dublin makes one of his final TV appearances in both an interview and scenes from his funeral.

Brendan Behan

Escape to the rocky shore of Strangford Lough for a windswept encounter with a painter who captures its beauty.

Arthur Twells

David Thompson's wordless film from 1963 presents an unsettling montage of images from Bacon's major mid-period works.

Francis Bacon: Paintings 1944-1962

Stirring account of the man who was perhaps England's greatest painter, narrated by Michael Hordern.

Turner

Barbara Hepworth discusses a life of dedication to visual arts.

Hepworth on Form

Barbara Hepworth is grappling with forms in her studio garden.

In My Sculpture Garden

Artists are honoured as valued members of the St Ives Art Colony.

Freedom of St Ives for Leach and Hepworth

A record of the famed sculptor's 1968 Tate retrospective, accompanied by a fascinating narration by Hepworth herself.

Barbara Hepworth at the Tate

Art on the move - behind the scenes at Bolton Museum.

Hepworth Sculpture Arrives at Bolton Museum

From solitary Idle Rock to recumbent sculptured stone, from terraced house and pit shaft to Sheep Piece, a national treasure in the making.

Henry Moore: Recollections of a Yorkshire Childhood

The north east's finest flat-capped stand-up, Bobby Thompson, talks about his life in comedy.

Lifestyle: The Little Waster Makes Good

The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, relaxes with his family in Windlesham and goes on tour to Egypt, Africa and Australia

Arthur Conan Doyle Relaxes with His Family at Windlesham

Orkney evoked through poetry, the sounds of nature, and the music of Peter Maxwell Davies.

One Foot in Eden

A Northumbrian soul: the language and history of a landscape in the music of Kathryn Tickell.

The Long Tradition

A powerful documentary which sees a community of artists under threat as their London studios face demolition.

28b Camden Street

Insightful documentary exploring the inspirations, environments and working methods of three contemporary artists.

Painters in the Modern World

This long-form portrait of an iconic opera star looks behind the voice to her youth in the segregated American South

Jessye Norman: Singer

An isolated life can mean that home is nothing more than an “airy tomb”, as imagined by poet and rural parish priest R S Thomas.

The Airy Tomb

What do artists do all day? Join the art students of Manchester to find out.

A Visit to an Art School

Immerse yourself in the work of Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti - icons of the Mexican Renaissance.

Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti

A portrait of the artist as a "sublime demon with the archangel's face", with an innovative musique concrète soundtrack.

Leonardo Da Vinci The Tragic Pursuit of Perfection

Take a mesmerising journey through the world of Bill Brandt's shadowy black and white photography.

Shadows from Light The Photography of Bill Brandt

Glimpses on Super 8 film of the picturesque landmarks and pretty countryside that inspired Romantic artist John Constable's paintings.

The Constable Country

A man with a historic mission, dedicated to preserving the magnificent artistry of the medieval glaziers of York for future generations.

Minster Glass

The transformative power of both nature and art meet as a tree becomes an elegant bird in the hands of a skilled craftsman.

A Woodman's Dream

Affable Beryl Cook downplays her gift.

Beryl Cook on the Hoe

The people's painter who dared to defy the art world.

Beryl Cook at Home

A night at the operetta with the Thornton-Cleveleys Amateur Operatic Society.

Operatic Operation

A chance to see and hear the last mining village, and last generation, to keep alive a cultural practice that knitted a community together.

The Hospital Sing

The many joys of barbershop singing on display as our Sheffield hopefuls are cajoled into a winning chorus by an inspirational teacher.

Hallmark of Harmony

The satirical novelist pokes fun at the places he loves to hate.

Tom Sharpe and the Places I Hate

What passions burn behind doors in Downpatrick? Enjoy a tale of two unknown artists who have both found something they can truly call their own.

The Ceramicists

Potter Ted sells his work in London, to keep the wolf from the door, but practises his art at Felin Wen, his home-cum-studio at Pontrug, Gwynedd.

Ted

This "musical profile of the Watersons" is a  precious document of the British folk revival, much of it shot in their hometown, Hull.

Travelling for a Living

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat Ka-Boom! Introducing … an anarchic spoof tour of the cult satirical rag Viz with creator Chris Donald.

Viz

Enter the imaginative world of acclaimed sculptor Rolanda Polonsky, a resident of Netherne Psychiatric Hospital, Surrey.

Rolanda Polonsky, Sculptor

The artist's place in 1950s Britain - and how it's paid for.

Artists Must Live

An exploration of creative and technological innovation, with images from the Hayward Gallery's groundbreaking 1970 show.

Kinetics

Novelist Cressida Lindsay and Commune Movement pioneer Sarah Eno feature in this Anglia TV documentary about life in a commune.

A Beautiful Way To Live

Author Cressida Lindsay has created a commune in rural Norfolk for fellow writers, artists, sculptors, and the occasional pop group.

Writers and Artists Commune At Old Rectory Farm, Scoulton, Norfolk

In a ten mile triangle giant toads are sculpted in bronze, the intricacies of trees are captured in oil and the first space invader is exhibited.

I Know What I Like (Artists)

A pre-Civilisation Kenneth Clark fronts this impressive early arts broadcast on the great Flemish painter.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder

From peep shows to opera glasses: how war and state funding turned a "Philistine, sports-loving people" into connoisseurs of the high arts.

The British - Are They Artistic?

Out on the wiley, windy moors, by rundown stone cottages, the bonneted Brontë sisters feed their imagination, and Emily (aka Ellis Bell) dreams of meeting her Heathcliffe.

Emily Jane

Richard Whiteley joins children on the Worth Valley Railway Santa's Special, while the Haworth Town Band sing On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at.

A Brontë Christmas

An intriguing film of an amateur filming a documentary about Emily Brontë on location, up on the Yorkshire moors, and editing it in his home.

The Shooting of Emily Jane

Mother Ireland

Pebbles in the Flood

Topical Budget Ham Spray September 1929

The Last Romantic

Gray's Elegy

Wordsworth and the Lakes

Brighton Arts Festival

Send Out Your Homing Pigeons Dai

Blue Kenny

Anish Kapoor

The Artist in Wales

Memoirs of a Pit Orchestra

Arlunydd wrth ei Waith /Artist at Work

Profile of artist Paul Nash, who was fascinated by the atmosphere of places and the surreal aspects of landscape.

Landscape from a Dream

The strange life and obsessive creativity of psychotic outsider artist Adolf Wölfli.

St. Adolf II

Portrait of a Glass Worker

Meet a young Ian McKellen, treading the boards of the legendary Crucible Theatre.

Sheffield Theatre

Glenda Jackson

Frida Kahlo's Corset