When Jonathan Yeo unveiled his official painting of King Charles last week, the portrait; titled ‘HM King Charles III’ took the world – and the internet – by storm. His use of the colour red on the 8-foot canvas was the subject of thousands of memes and TikTok videos. It was a reaction the artist, who has painted several members of the royal family during his career, had not anticipated.
In this week’s A Right Royal Podcast, which you can listen to below, host Andrea Caamano and HELLO!’s royal editor Emily Nash had the pleasure of catching up with the renowned artist to talk about his painting, which was four years in the making. We got the lowdown on some of the hilarious reactions that entertained the world – and his two daughters, and what the King really thought of it.
LISTEN: Jonathan Yeo reveals the biggest challenge he faced when painting King Charles
In the new episode, which you can listen to below, Jonathan opens up about his four-hour-long sittings with the King, some of which happened before he ascended to the throne. Also, how the Monarch reacted to his use of colour red in their last sitting, which took place last November.
“When I showed it to him back in November, when it was sort of three-quarters done… certainly the face was done, body was sketched and the colour was mostly pretty much as it was, in the end. If he'd been appalled, I think, I might have rethought it and toned it down a bit. But he didn't seem that way,” Jonathan reveals.
Why the use of red? The painter explains: “That was something I'd made an early decision to try out. Because I thought it was an interesting colour and you want it to be interesting.
Did he know the use of the colour would be so divisive? “I didn't think it was a risky thing to do, I thought it was an interesting colour,” he says.
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“It was a more formal commission than I'm used to," adds Jonathan of the high-profile job. The painter was given a specific size by The Drapers Company "because I had to match some other royal portraits they have in their hall". He was also told that Charles must be in uniform, "the Welsh Guard’s tunic with its bright red colour." So, his goal was "to figure out how to incorporate that."
In his chat with Andrea and Emily, Jonathan also reveals if the monarch made contact with him after the picture went viral, as well as detailing which were the most difficult parts of the artwork to paint.
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In this episode, we also catch up with Prince Harry’s good friend David Wiseman, who travelled with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to Nigeria earlier this month.
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