The painter behind King Charles‘ first official portrait since he became monarch is one of the world’s most in-demand portrait artists – with plenty of royal and other famous commissions to his name.
Jonathan Yeo, 53, is behind the portrait of the King, depicting him in the uniform of the Welsh Guards’ in a blaze of scarlet and fiery red hues said to emulate the transition of a butterfly as Charles undergoes a metamorphosis from prince to ruler.
It was originally commissioned in 2020 but completed after Charles ascended to the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022.
The bold and highly-praised work is not the first royal project he has undertaken – nor the first famous face he has rendered in his unique style, which blends modern digital techniques with those associated with traditional painting.
And in places, Yeo’s own life story is as interesting and winding as those of his subjects, who range from the likes of Tony Blair and David Cameron to Nicole Kidman, Idris Elba and Cara Delevingne.
Yeo was born on December 18, 1970, to British politician Tim Yeo and Diane Pickard.
Yeo senior was the former Tory MP for South Suffolk who represented the constituency from 1983 until 2015, when he was deselected by the party.
The MP had to resign as environment minister under John Major in 1994 after it emerged that he had fathered a child with a Conservative councillor, Julia Stent.
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His extramarital affair ran in stark contrast to the traditional British families Major praised in his ‘Back to Basics’ campaign at the 1993 Conservative Party conference.
And the politician had talked up the need to ‘reduce broken families and the number of single parents’ – with such hypocrisy as his, he could not stay.
Yeo senior was also later implicated in claims he helped a solar energy company boss to prepare before the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, of which he was then chair.
He lost a court case against The Sunday Times, which reported the claims, after the judge ruled the paper’s reporting had been ‘substantially true’.
As a boy, Jonathan Yeo was educated at the private Westminster School where he was often told off for doodling in class.
He was struck down by Hodgkin’s disease, a form of cancer, in his twenties, and it was during his time recovering from the condition that he taught himself to paint.
Despite his lack of formal training he skyrocketed to international acclaim by the age of 30 with his work featuring in galleries across the world and the commissions poured in.
The House of Commons named him the official artist of the 2001 general election: he created paintings of the major party leaders – Tony Blair, William Hague and Charles Kennedy – in a work entitled Proportional Representation.
His style of merging digital manipulation techniques with physical brushstrokes create distinctive works that are immediately apparent as his own.
In 2007, he unveiled a controversial collage of then-US President George W Bush, which rendered the 43rd leader of the free world using scraps of pornographic images of genitalia.
Since then, he has painted the likes of Jude Law, Lily Cole, Nicole Kidman, Sir Michael Parkinson and Cara Delevingne.
And the King is not the first royal to pose for him either. In 2014, he painted the then-Duchess of Cornwall Camilla, sitting pensively, clutching a pair of spectacles, rendered in thoughtful hues of blue and grey.
A 2008 commission of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, sees his regal features depicted in blocks of bold colour that nevertheless convey a lifetime of royal duty worn in his expression.
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Queen Elizabeth II also asked him to draw Sir David Attenborough, with the resulting pencil sketch capturing the presenter’s distinctive head of tussled hair as he looks into the middle distance.
Director of the Museum of National History in Denmark, Mette Skougaard described Yeo as ‘a pivotal force in the revitalisation of figurative art in general and in the art of portraiture in particular.’
After painting the then-PM in 2001, Yeo was commissioned to paint Tony Blair again in January 2008.
However, the artwork depicted a withered-looking Blair donning a red poppy – striking a chord with many due its uncensored allusion to the Iraq War and Blair’s legacy as PM.
Following the Blair and Bush works, critics were concerned Yeo had begun to ‘other’ the politicians and celebrities he once used to paint.
Critics, specifically Jonathan Jones from the Guardian, claimed the artist was attempting to manipulate the ex-Prime Minister’s public image.
He alleged: ‘Blair is a tacit co-conspirator who walked in wearing the poppy, then sat as bleak as he looks here, an invitation to the artist to home in on that tell-tale paper flower.’
But he told the Financial Times in 2008: ‘The Bush collage was a riposte. And there was a certain logic in that riposte. What is more puzzling is what happens after that.’
Yeo went on to create a similarly racy collage of the late Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi entitled Bunga Bunga, after the sex parties that were said to happen at the politician’s private villas.
Other sexually graphic collages followed depicting moral crusader Mary Whitehouse, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, Sean Connery, one-time Alaskan governor Sarah Palin and portrait painter Lucian Freud.
These did not stop invitations from dropping through his letterbox. Yeo has, in the last decade or so, created striking portraits in a variety of styles.
His painting of the actor Idris Elba shows the Luther star depicted shirtless, his gaze piercing the canvas; another, of iPhone designer Jony Ive, shows him as taking a selfie on the device he helped to create.
Others followed: Pakistani girls’ rights campaigner Malala Yousafzai, Kevin Spacey as both Richard III and his House of Cards alter ego Francis Underwood, Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito, the model Cara Delevingne.
‘There’s a tradition of theatrical portraits that doesn’t happen so much these days, Yeo told the Evening Standard about his painting of Spacey as the tragic Shakespearean king.
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‘The thing with actors is you never quite know where the character ends and they start. Hopefully, there’s a big ambiguity.’
Yeo is married to the actress Shebah Ronay, who is probably best known for her role in the early days of Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks as Natasha Andersen.
She appeared on the soap for five months before her character was killed off in the programme’s first big issue-led storyline, when her drink was spiked at a party.
The pair have two daughters.
He told The Times in 2016 of his home life: ‘Shebah usually cooks and then I try and relax. I’m fully aware that I am doing my dream job and that many artists aren’t so lucky. When I put my head on the pillow, it’s one thing I’m always grateful for.’
According to his website, Yeo mainly utilises digital printing methods to bring his art to life.
However, he doesn’t shy away from hand-finishing his pieces with acrylic paint, and varnish as well as adjusting the digital images in the pre-printed stage of the process.
After featuring in the Museum of National History in Denmark as well as The Lowry Gallery in Salford, Yeo went on to be an art consultant for Soho House.
He was also featured on the 2010 Art Fund Prize judging panel as well as the BP Portrait Prize.
He is currently artist trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.
