David Hockney exhibition opening in Belfast on Friday

The first "significant exhibition" in Ireland of the work of English artist David Hockney will open at the Metropolitan Arts Centre (MAC) in Belfast on Friday. The exhibition by the 79-year-old painter, entitled, David Hockney: I draw, I do, will concentrate on his early work including the Paper Pool series, alongside work from this decade.

"We are delighted to be presenting the first significant exhibition of David Hockney's work in Ireland to date," said Hugh Mulholland, senior curator at the MAC.

"The exhibition focuses on Hockney's formative years at Bradford Regional College of Art in the 1950s and will include rarely seen anatomical and observational drawings, early graphite portraits as well as significant later works which demonstrate Hockney's continued interest in pushing the boundaries of his practice using new technologies."

iPad portraits

Mr Mulholland said the exhibition will show a series of his iPad portraits of family and friends as well as some of his well-known works from

The Arrival of Spring, 2011

, which many visitors may recognise.

“At the core of all of this work is Hockney’s commitment to the critical importance of the act of drawing and how the early training at art school is drawn on throughout one’s creative life,” he said.

Noirin McKinney of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, which is helping to bring the exhibition to Belfast, said Hockney was "considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century and an important artist within the 1960s Pop Art movement".

‘I draw

’ The MAC chose the title of the exhibition from an answer Hockney gave to a question by designer

Paul Smith

: “Do you still draw in the more traditional way, in the way you first did when you left the Royal College?” Hockney replied, “Yeah, I draw, I do.From the age of 16 to the age of 20, all I did was really draw, because I was at the art school in Bradford and in Bradford you could be in the school from nine in the morning to nine at night. So I drew for four years. I don’t know what art schools are like now, but I’m told they don’t do drawing. That seems a bit mad to me that. Drawing is going to be needed in the future.”