It seems that few British celebrities could resist the chance to be painted by Jonathan Yeo. Broadcasting legend David Attenborough, 97, is among those who have recently climbed the spiral staircase to his cozy studio, tucked away at the end of a west London lane, for the UK One of the most famous figures, Mr. Yang, poses. Portrait artist.
However, when it came to painting his latest portrait of King Charles III, the artist had to get straight to the point.
Mr. Young hired a truck to transport his 7.5-by-5.5-foot canvas to Clarence House, the King’s London residence. There, he set up a platform so that he could put the final touches on this striking contemporary portrait, which depicts Charles in uniform against an ethereal background.
The painting, which will be unveiled at Buckingham Palace in mid-May, is Charles’ first large-scale work since becoming king. It is likely to reaffirm Mr Young’s status as the preferred portraitist of contemporary British greats, as well as actors, writers, businessmen and celebrities around the world. His privately commissioned works sell for approximately $500,000 each.
Painting the king’s portrait also marks a return to normalcy for the 53-year-old Mr Yang. Last year, he suffered a near-fatal heart attack in his early 20s, which he attributes to the lingering effects of cancer.The similarities to his subject are not lost on him: Charles, 75, announced in February that he had diagnosed with cancerhe was in power for only 18 months.
Mr. Yang said he didn’t learn the king was ill until he completed the painting. If anything, he depicts an energetic and majestic monarch.But it gave Mr Young a deeper sense of empathy for the man he knew during four meetings starting in June 2021, when Charles was still Prince of Wales and in his mother’s deathQueen Elizabeth II, and his coronation Last May.
“You’ll see changes in people’s bodies, depending on how things go,” Mr. Yang said in his studio, where he elegantly moved the as-yet-unveiled painting away from the eyes of curious visitors. open. “The age and experience suit him,” he said. “His behavior did change when he became king.”
The portrait was commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Drapers, a medieval guild of wool and cloth merchants that is now a charity. It will hang in Drapers’ Hall, the company’s aristocratic residence in London’s financial district, which houses a gallery of monarchs from King George III to Queen Victoria. Charles, played by Mr. Yeo, will add a modern touch to this classic lineup.
“Jonny succeeded in combining an elusive quality of majesty with an edgy temperament,” said friend and art historian Philip Mould, who had seen the painting and called it “one-horned.” beast”.
Mr Young is no stranger to portraying members of the royal family. He painted Charles’s wife, Queen Camilla, whom he said was a delight, while his father, Prince Philip, was less so. “He was a bit like a caged tiger,” Mr. Young recalled. “I can’t imagine him being easy as a father, but he’s interesting as a topic.”
Still, the current monarch is a first for Mr Young, whose targets include prime ministers (Tony Blair and David Cameron), actors (Dennis Hopper and Nicole Kidman), artists ( Damien Hirst), tycoon (Rupert Murdoch) and activist (Rupert Murdoch). Malala Yousafzai).
Mr. Yang said that there is a factor “futurologyto his work. Some of his subjects became more famous after he painted them. Others have faded. Some of them, like Kevin Spacey Tried and acquitted Notorious due to sexual misconduct allegations. The National Portrait Gallery in Washington has returned Mr. Young’s Spacey portrait, which he made while playing a ruthless politician in the TV series “House of Cards.”
Looking back on his first-rate subjects, Mr. Young lays down some rules of thumb for his art. Older faces are easier to capture than younger faces because they are more lifelike. The best portraits capture visual characteristics that remain relevant even as you age. The only bad subjects are boring subjects.
“He didn’t want me to pose, he just wanted me to talk,” said Giancarlo Esposito, the American actor known for his roles in the crime classic “Breaking Bad” and Guy Ritchie’s recent Best known for playing the elegant villain in the TV series “The Gentlemen”. Esposito said that as an actor he was good at creating characters, “but there was no way to fool him.” “
“This is a chance to be Giancarlo, to unmask,” said Mr. Esposito, who said the last time he posed for a photo was as a child at a county fair.
Mr. Yang, who has flabby limbs, a quick smile, stylish glasses and a forehead pushed far back, has learned to appreciate their charms and flaws as the son of a public figure.His father, Tim Yeo, was a Conservative MP and a minister under Prime Minister John Major, but his career was marred by professional and personal scandal.
At first, Mr. Yang was impatient with his son’s artistic dream. “My dad definitely thought I needed to get a proper job,” he said, noting that when he took a year off after high school to try to become a painter, he didn’t give him any money. Mr. Yang’s early efforts revealed a lack of formal training. “Obviously, I didn’t sell any photos.”
In 1993, at the end of his sophomore year at Kent, he developed Hodgkin’s disease. Mr. Yang delved deeper into painting as a way of coping with the disease. He got a break when his father’s friend, the Anglican archbishop and anti-apartheid activist Trevor Huddleston, commissioned a portrait.
“He asked me mainly out of pity,” Mr. Young recalled. “But the results were amazing, better than anyone expected.”
Commissions began to pour in, and Mr. Young became sought after for his revealing portraits of famous faces. In 2013, the National Portrait Gallery in London held an exhibition of his mid-career work.
“He brought the portrait back,” said Nick Jones, founder of Soho House, a chain of private members clubs that works with Mr. Young to put his and other artists’ paintings on the walls. “Portrait is always such a serious thing,” Mr. Jones said. “He’s able to add layers and bring out people’s personalities.”
It helps that Mr. Yang is well-connected, prolific and entrepreneurial. He had a clear awareness of the business side of his art. “No matter how you dress,” he said, “you are in the luxury industry to some extent.”
Successful but creatively restless, Mr. Young began experimenting. When aides to President George W. Bush contacted him to do a portrait but later abandoned the project, he decided to do it anyway, but only as a collage of images cut from pornographic magazines.
Bush’s portrait went viral, and Mr. Young created collages of other public figures, including Hugh Hefner and Silvio Berlusconi. It was a challenging but time-consuming job – he bought stacks of skin magazines to collect enough raw materials – and his supply dried up when he said “the iPad killed the porn magazine industry” .
Mr. Yang also became interested in the use of technology in art. He works on design projects at Apple. During the pandemic, he drew celebrity chef Jamie Oliver via FaceTime. He also created an app that allows for a virtual reality tour of his studio, a fully equipped space located in an old workshop where pipe organs were once produced.
But on a Sunday night in March 2023, Mr. Yang’s busy life came to an abrupt end. He went into cardiac arrest – his heart stopped beating for more than two minutes. Mr Young said he believed the crisis was related to his cancer treatment decades ago. While he didn’t see a bright light at the end of the tunnel, as others who have had near-death experiences have described, he recalled a distinct feeling of floating outside his body.
Mr. Yang is married with two daughters, but he still clings to life. After recovering, he found that his career as a painter—temporarily diverted by a detour toward technology and other pursuits—had been rekindled. Soon he was immersed in portraits of Charles, Mr. Esposito and Mr. Attenborough.
“It definitely makes you think, ‘Let’s stop messing around,'” Mr. Young said. “It’s like dodging a bullet.”
