IN the early to mid-1950s, Bradford Regional College of Art – at the bottom of Great Horton Road – was lucky enough to bring together a number of exceptionally-talented students.

The photograph shows four of them playing cards in 1956. From left to right they are: John Loker, Norman Stevens, David Oxtoby and David Hockney. Hockney, 19 at the time, had naturally dark hair. He only dyed it blond when he went to the Royal College of Art.

In the 1980s Oxtoby had an exhibition of his rock star paintings at Bradford’s Cartwright Hall.

Next month it’s the turn of Stevens and Hockney to have very different shows in Bradford.

Next Thursday, a BBC documentary film about David Hockney gets its northern premiere at the National Media Museum.

Will White, who is looking after the event for the NMM, said: “It’ll be a big red-carpet event and we’ve had it confirmed that the director, Randall Wright, and Hockney’s brother and sister – Paul and Margaret – will be in attendance.

“The film really does celebrate the part that Bradford played in David’s development.”

In one scene the young Hockney, back from London for a family visit, pulls a packet of fags from his jacket pocket and lights one up. His father Kenneth, a non-smoker, removes the cigarette from his son’s lips.

The film is called Hockney and the 77-year-old artist, now back in Los Angeles after six or seven years in Bridlington, gave its director Randall Wright access to his personal archive of photographs and films.

The documentary is described as a “frank and unparalleled visual diary of his long life”.

Mark Bell, head of arts commissioning for the BBC, called it an “unprecedented” portrait, “with unique access to his work, his archive and reminiscences from the people who know him best.”

The film can be seen again at the National Media Museum from November 25.

That night’s screening will be followed by a live screen talk with Hockney from his Los Angeles studio.

Four days later, on November 10, the work of Norman Stevens is showcased at Bradford College’s newly-improved Dye House Gallery, Carlton Street.

Stevens was born in Bradford in 1937 – the same year as Hockney – and studied painting at Bradford Regional College of Art from 1952 to 1957.

In 1957 he moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art and after graduating, taught at art schools in Hornsey, Maidstone and Manchester.

In September 1974 he returned to Yorkshire for one year, where he was the Gregory Fellow at the University of Leeds.

After this he took up painting full time and exhibited extensively in the UK, Europe and North America.

In 1983 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts, but died five years later in 1988.

The exhibition will bring together painting and print-making from national museums, the Redfern Gallery and, most significantly, from the private collections of Mrs Jean Stevens and other family and friends.

The exhibition runs until December 12.

The Dye House Gallery is open on weekdays from 11am until 4pm.