Meanwhile, the National Gallery of Australia has refused to take down a far less flattering painting of Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart.
Jonathan Yeo, HM King Charles III (2024) (detail). Oil on canvas, 230 cm x 165.5 cm. Courtesy Jonathan Yeo Studio.
Two portraits made headlines beyond the usual art media over the past 24 hours, prompting widespread discussion.
Self-taught British artist Jonathan Yeo’s 230 cm-tall painting of King Charles was revealed at Buckingham Palace yesterday. It immediately came under criticism.
Most of the comments focused on the portrait’s prevailing colours, reds and pinks inspired by the Welsh Guards uniform worn in the portrait.
The top comment on Yeo’s Instagram post of the portrait, with almost 9,000 likes at time of writing, reads, ‘I’m sorry but his portrait looks like he’s in hell.’
New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz called the painting ‘a very reddish radish of a picture’, dismissing it as ‘mock romantic monochromatic morose shite because it only has subject matter.’
Many commenters compared the reds to blood spilled by British colonisers or lost during menstruation, an allusion to Charles’ joke—recorded in a 1989 phone call with now Queen Camilla—that he would be reincarnated as ‘a Tampax’.
Despite the criticisms, the portrait of Charles is flattering. He stands tall, his expression kindly, a butterfly—representing his transformation from Prince to King, and his concern for the environment—about to descend on his shoulder.
Vincent Namatjira (Western Aranda people) and Manager, Heath Aarons, Iwantja Arts, with Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour, installation view, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, 2024.
The same can’t be said for Australian artist Vincent Namatjira‘s wonderfully jowly, ruddy-cheeked portrait of mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, who wears the startled expression of someone who just saw an unflattering portrait of themselves.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Rinehart asked the National Gallery of Australia to remove the picture from the exhibition Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour, which continues through 21 July.
The National Gallery has refused to remove the painting.
‘Since 1973, when the National Gallery acquired Jackson Pollock‘s Blue Poles (1952), there has been a dynamic discussion on the artistic merits of works in the national collection [and] on display at the Gallery,’ they said in a statement.
‘We present works of art to the Australian public to inspire people to explore, experience and learn about art.’
The story has since been enthusiastically shared by publications around the globe.
Reactions to the portraits of King Charles and Gina Rinehart evidence the satisfaction of ‘punching up’ at paintings of the rich and powerful.
‘It is always fun to dislike public pictures and portraits,’ Saltz said. —[O]
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