Spitting Image

Applauded for bringing portraiture back into fashion, JONATHAN YEO talks to REBECCA BRADBURY about overcoming adversity, making mistakes and painting VIPs

- JONATHAN YEO

If you’re not already familiar with the portraits of Jonathan Yeo, you will certainly have heard of his sitters. The 49-year-old artist has painted some of the most influential people of our time, ranging from political heavyweights such as the former prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron to royalty – he has painted official commissions of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall – to Hollywood A-listers including Nicole Kidman, Helena Bonham Carter and Jude Law.

Forget coming face to face with these big names in real life, Jonathan’s portraits are even more likely to stop you in your tracks. In what the National Portrait Gallery describes as a combination of “photographic realism and a painterly touch”, the artist has given traditional portraiture a 21st-century makeover while achieving the holy grail of the genre: capturing the essence of his subject’s personality.