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.
This story is from the December 2020 edition of Artists & Illustrators.
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This story is from the December 2020 edition of Artists & Illustrators.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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