It seems few famous Brits could resist the chance to be drawn by Jonathan Yeo. David Attenborough, the 97-year-old broadcasting legend, was among those who recently climbed the spiral staircase to his cozy studio, hidden at the end of a road in West London, to pose for Mr. Yeo , one of Britain’s most recognized. portrait artist.
However, when painting his latest portrait, of King Charles III, the artist had to stay on topic.
Mr. Yeo hired a truck to transport his 7.5-by-5.5-foot canvas to the king’s London residence, Clarence House. There he erected a platform on which he could apply the final touches to a striking contemporary portrait, depicting Charles in uniform against an ethereal background.
The painting, which will go on display at Buckingham Palace in mid-May, is the first large-scale depiction of Charles since he became king. It will likely reaffirm Mr Yeo’s status as his generation’s portraitist of the great and good of Britain, as well as of actors, writers, businessmen and famous people around the world. His privately commissioned works can fetch around $500,000 each.
Painting the king’s portrait also marks a return to normal life for Mr Yeo, 53, who suffered a near-fatal heart attack last year which he blamed on the lingering effects of cancer in his head. 20 years old. The parallel with his theme was not lost on him: Charles, 75, announced in February that he had was diagnosed with cancerafter just 18 months of his reign.
Mr. Yeo said he did not know about the king’s illness until he completed the painting. If anything, his depiction is of a strong and commanding king. But it made Mr Yeo more deeply empathetic to a man he knew over four meetings, starting in June 2021, when Charles was still Prince of Wales, and continuing after the war. his mother’s deathQueen Elizabeth II, and his coronation last month.
“You see physical changes in people, depending on how things are going,” Mr. Yeo said in his studio, where he deftly filmed the still-hidden painting from view. curiosity of curious tourists. “His age and experience suit him,” he said. “His attitude definitely changed after becoming king.”
The portrait was commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Drapers, a medieval guild of cloth and wool merchants now active in charity. It will hang in Drapers’ Hall, the company’s baronial wing in London’s financial district, which houses a gallery of monarchs from King George III to Queen Victoria. Mr. Yeo’s Charles will add a contemporary touch to that classic lineup.
Philip Mold, a friend and art historian who saw the painting and called it “something of a unicorn”, said: “What Jonny has succeeded in is to combine a majestic quality elusive with astuteness.”
Mr Yeo is no stranger to depicting royalty. He painted Charles’s wife, Queen Camilla, who he said was very happy, and his father, Prince Philip, who was less so. “He was a bit like a caged tiger,” Mr. Yeo recalled. “I can’t imagine him being an easy-going father but he’s an interesting subject.”
However, the reigning monarch is a first for Mr Yeo, whose subjects include prime ministers (Tony Blair and David Cameron), actors (Dennis Hopper and Nicole Kidman), artists (Damien Hirst), tycoon (Rupert Murdoch) and activists (Malala Yousafzai).
Mr. Yeo believes that there is a factor of “future studies” to his work. Some of his subjects became more famous after he painted them; others have faded. A few, like Kevin Spacey, who were was tried and acquitted because of sexual harassment, has gained a bad reputation. The National Portrait Gallery in Washington has returned Mr. Yeo’s portrait of Spacey, made when the actor played a ruthless politician in the series House of Cards.
Looking back at his A-list subjects, Mr. Yeo has developed some rules of thumb for his art. Older faces are easier to photograph than younger faces because they are more alive. The best portraits capture visual characteristics that remain relevant even as the person ages. And the only bad subjects are the boring ones.
“He didn’t want to,” said Giancarlo Esposito, the American actor best known for playing the elegant villain in the classic crime film “Breaking Bad” and the recent Guy Ritchie television series “The Gentlemen.” I posed, he just wanted me to talk. ” Esposito said, as an actor, he is very good at portraying character, “but there is no way to fool him.”
“It was an opportunity to be Giancarlo, without the mask,” said Mr. Esposito, who said he last posed for a portrait as a child at a county fair.
With a limp figure with a quick smile and stylish glasses pushed back on his forehead, Mr. Yeo learned to appreciate the charms and flaws of public figures as the son of such a person. His father, Tim Yeo, was a Conservative member of Parliament and a Minister under Prime Minister John Major, whose career was ruined by unprofessional and responsible people. personal scandal.
At first, Mr. Yeo was not very patient with his son’s artistic dreams. “My dad definitely thought I needed to get a proper job,” he said, while also not giving him money when he took a year off after high school to try to become an artist. Mr. Yeo’s initial efforts showed that he had no formal training and “it was clear that I couldn’t sell any paintings.”
Then, in 1993, at the end of his second year at university in Kent, he was attacked by Hodgkin’s disease. Mr. Yeo delved deeper into painting as a way to cope with his illness. He got a break when a friend of his father – Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican archbishop and anti-apartheid activist – commissioned him to paint a portrait.
“He asked me mainly out of pity,” Mr. Yeo recalled. “But it turned out spectacularly, better than anyone expected.”
Commissions started pouring in and Mr. Yeo was sought after for his revealing portraits of famous faces. In 2013, the National Portrait Gallery in London mounted a mid-career exhibition of his work.
“He brought the portrait home,” said Nick Jones, founder of Soho House, a chain of private members clubs, which has collaborated with Mr. Yeo to hang paintings by him and other artists on the walls. . “Portraits are always harsh,” Mr. Jones said. “He can add layers and bring out people’s personalities.”
That helps Mr. Yeo have good relationships, productivity and entrepreneurial spirit. He has a clear view of the commercial aspect of his art. “No matter how you dress,” he said, “to some extent, you are in the luxury business.”
Successful but constantly creative, Mr. Yeo started experimenting. When President George W. Bush’s aides contacted him to take a portrait and then abandoned the project, he decided to go ahead with it anyway, but for a collage of photos cut from pornographic magazines. adultery.
The Bush portrait went viral online and Mr. Yeo created collages of other public figures, including Hugh Hefner and Silvio Berlusconi. It was challenging but time-consuming work — he bought stacks of dermatology magazines to gather enough raw materials — and his supplies ran out when, he says, “the iPad killed the industry.” porn magazine industry”.
Mr. Yeo is also attracted to the use of technology in art. He works on design projects at Apple. He drew celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, over FaceTime during the pandemic. And he created an app that offers a virtual reality tour of his studio, a fully furnished space in a former factory that once made organs.
But on a Sunday evening in March 2023, Mr. Yeo’s busy life came to a terrifying halt. He went into cardiac arrest – his heart stopped beating for more than two minutes. Mr Yeo said he believed the crisis was related to his cancer treatment decades ago. Although he did not see a bright light at the end of the tunnel, as other near-death survivors have described, he remembered the palpable feeling of floating outside his body.
Mr. Yeo is married and has two daughters, clinging to life. After recovering, he found his career as a painter – temporarily sidetracked by a turn to technology and other pursuits – had been rekindled. Before long, he was immersed in portraits of Charles, Mr. Esposito and Mr. Attenborough.
“It definitely makes you feel, ‘Let’s not mess around,'” Mr. Yeo said. “It’s like dodging a bullet.”
