Jonathan Yeo
Encyclopedia
Jonathan Yeo is a British artist who rose to prominence in the 2000s as a contemporary portraitist, responsible for iconic paintings of Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

, Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

, Prince Philip, Erin O'Connor
Erin O'Connor
-Early life:Erin O'Connor was born and brought up in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, England and went to Brownhills Community School . She was raised Catholic and her father is from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland...

, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

, and David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

 among his sitters. His unauthorised 2007 portrait of George W Bush, created from cuttings of pornographic magazines brought him worldwide notoriety, and was shown in London, New York and LA. He is married to the former actress and journalist Shebah Ronay and they have two daughters.

Career and controversy

The son of former Conservative Minister Tim Yeo
Tim Yeo
Timothy Stephen Kenneth Yeo is an English Conservative politician, Member of Parliament for South Suffolk and the current Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee.-Early life:...

, Jonathan Yeo taught himself to paint in his early 20s while recovering from Hodgkin's Disease. In the early 2000s, he became best known for his lifelike portraits of the rich and famous. Sitters included actor Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

, Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...

-winning artist Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry
Grayson Perry is an English artist, known mainly for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing. Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of...

, Saville Row tailor Ozwald Boateng
Ozwald Boateng
Ozwald Boateng OBE is a British-born fashion designer of Ghanaian descent, known for his trade mark twist style on classic British tailoring. Inspired by his father's suits, Boateng opened his first shop on Savile Row at the age of 23.-Biography:...

, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

 and British actress Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.- Early life...

. In 2005, his portrait of Erin O’Connor was widely used to advertise the National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery can refer to:*National Portrait Gallery in Canberra*Portrait Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario*National Portrait Gallery , with satellite galleries in Denbighshire, Derbyshire and Somerset...

. In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery acquired Yeo’s portrait of Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

 for its permanent collection.

Commissioned by the House of Commons to paint the three party leaders during the 2001 general election, Yeo's approach upset some backbench MPs. His triptych of Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

, William Hague
William Hague
William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

, and Charles Kennedy
Charles Kennedy
Charles Peter Kennedy is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who led the Liberal Democrats from 9 August 1999 until 7 January 2006 and is currently a Member of Parliament for the Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency....

, Proportional Representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

, was made up of canvases that were sized according to the subjects’ popularity. In 2003 he caused uproar at the highly conservative Royal Society of Portrait Painters by unveiling a full-frontal double nude of Ivan Massow
Ivan Massow
Ivan Massow is a British entrepreneur and financial adviser. He founded PayMeMy.com in September 2011; a service which pays back 'trail' commissions - often thousands of pounds a year - to policy-holders themselves, instead of the IFAs who originally set the policies up.Ivan was also Chairman of...

, the entrepreneur and vocal patron of the arts.

In January 2008 Yeo's official portrait of former Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 was unveiled and struck a public chord with its Iraq war reference. It showed an older and wearier-looking Blair wearing a dazzling red poppy - a recognisable symbol of war remembrance for the British. Maintaining the political subjects that have featured throughout his work, in 2009, Yeo unveiled a portrait of David Cameron, which was later sold in an auction in 2010 for £200,000.

Yeo is perhaps best known internationally for his portrayal of George W Bush. After a commission to paint the US president was reportedly awarded and then withdrawn, Yeo took it upon himself to create an image of the President anyway, making a collaged portrait from pornography. The work has led to Yeo exhibiting more collages – mainly portraits and nudes – made the same way.

In June 2008 he had a sell out show at Lazarides Gallery, owned by Steve Lazarides, a specialist dealer in outsider and street art, well known for launching Banksy’s
Banksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique...

 career. The show 'Blue Period' included the Bush porn portrait as well as new collages of Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...

 and Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

.

It was reported that the George Bush collage was seized by Israeli customs on the way to the Banksy curated 'Santa's Ghetto' exhibition in Bethlehem in December 2007. Most recently it was widely reported that his collage of Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...

, made the same way, was bought from an exhibition in New York by the British artist Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

.

'Porn in the USA' was Yeo's first US solo-show, also staged by Lazarides, it took place in Beverly Hills, LA, and was met by critical acclaim. Following on from the subversive success of 'Bush' (2007), this exhibition housed portraits of Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...

, Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...

 and Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...

; all fashioned from pornographic collage cutouts.

Yeo is art consultant at Soho House group internationally, has co-curated the clubs worldwide, and designed the now notorious, subtly pornographic wallpaper that adorns many of its walls. Jonathan Yeo was a judge for the 2010 Art Fund Prize for museums. The other judges included Kirsty Young (Chairman), Kathy Gee, Professor A C Grayling, Professor Steve Jones, Sally Osman and Lars Tharp. The prize worth £100,000 was awarded to the Ulster Museum.

Yeo had two works involved in the recent dispute over the sale of the late Dennis Hopper's art collection. He was one of only three artists to have been commissioned by the late Dennis Hopper to paint his portrait; Hopper described his work as 'timeless and exquisite'. Two other artists commissioned to paint Hopper include Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 and Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....

.

Famous sitters continue to commission Yeo to paint their portraits, including Prince Philip and Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

, whilst it was reported in April 2011, that the Queen had commissioned Yeo to paint a portrait of David Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...

 for the Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...

. The National Portrait Gallery commissioned a portrait of Sir Michael Parkinson by Jonathan Yeo, to sit within its permanent collection; it was unveiled on 27 May 2011.

Critical reception

In his Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 review of the Blair portrait, Jonathan Jones
Jonathan Jones
Jonathan Jones may refer to:*Jonathan Jones , British journalist and art critic*Jonathan Jones , lead vocalist and keyboardist of We Shot the Moon*Jonathan A. Jones , British physicist...

 accuses Yeo and his subject of conspiring to manipulate the image of the former PM, claiming that, 'Blair is a tacit co-conspirator who walked in wearing the poppy, then sat as bleak as he looks here, in invitation to the artist to home in on that tell-tale paper flower.'

Some commentators have suggested that, by making portraits and other work which poke fun at the politicians and celebrities they depict, he risks alienating the very people whom he used to paint very successfully. NPG director Sandy Nairne was reported as being concerned about Yeo pushing the porn collage theme too far saying 'the Bush collage was a riposte. And there was a certain logic in that riposte. What is more puzzling is what happens after that.'

Other critics and commentators have been more supportive, however, Charles Saumarez-Smith, former Director of the National Gallery and Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, said of the porn-collage of Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

, 'Yeo is the young rising star of portraiture and Freud is the acknowledged master. It’s a homage that has its tradition in the past. Painters would quite often do portraits of other artists they admired. Admittedly this one of Freud is rather different as Yeo has used this other dimension – people’s private parts.'

Yeo has been quoted as saying that his next body of work will explore the world of cosmetic surgery.

Portraits

Yeo's portrait subjects include:
  • David Attenborough
    David Attenborough
    Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...

  • David Cameron
    David Cameron
    David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

  • David Gilmour
    David Gilmour
    David Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...

  • David Walliams
    David Walliams
    David Edward Walliams is an English comedian, writer and actor, known for his partnership with Matt Lucas on the TV sketch show Little Britain and its predecessor Rock Profile...

  • Dennis Hopper
    Dennis Hopper
    Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

  • Erin O'Connor
    Erin O'Connor
    -Early life:Erin O'Connor was born and brought up in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, England and went to Brownhills Community School . She was raised Catholic and her father is from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland...

  • George W. Bush
    George W. Bush
    George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

  • Grayson Perry
    Grayson Perry
    Grayson Perry is an English artist, known mainly for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing. Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of...

  • Michael Parkinson
    Michael Parkinson
    Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...

  • Minnie Driver
    Minnie Driver
    Minnie Driver is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.- Early life...

  • Nicole Kidman
    Nicole Kidman
    Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

  • Ozwald Boateng
    Ozwald Boateng
    Ozwald Boateng OBE is a British-born fashion designer of Ghanaian descent, known for his trade mark twist style on classic British tailoring. Inspired by his father's suits, Boateng opened his first shop on Savile Row at the age of 23.-Biography:...

  • Prince Philip
  • Paris Hilton
    Paris Hilton
    Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...

  • Rupert Murdoch
    Rupert Murdoch
    Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....

  • Tony Blair
    Tony Blair
    Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...


Selected exhibitions

SOLO SHOWS:
  • Porn in the USA, Lazarides LA, Beverly Hills, 9 July - 8 August 2010
  • Blue Period, Lazarides, London, 5 June – 11 July 2008
  • Jonathan Yeo's Sketchbook, Eleven, London,17 February – 17 March 2006
  • Proportional Representation, Portcullis House, London, October - December 2001

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS:
  • The Urban Artist, Clemens-Sculz-Straβe 87, Hamburg, St. Pauli, 10-14 June 2011
  • National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Lane, 27 May -
  • New Masters, Subliminal Projects, West Hollywood, 7 May - 4 June 2011
  • The Urban Artist, Soho House, Torstrasse, Berlin, 12 March - 1 April 2011
  • Peeping Tom, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands, 19 February - 8 May 2011
  • New Art (Formerly Known As New Art), CircleCulture Gallery, Berlin, 21 January – 5 March 2011
  • Christmas Salon, Eleven, London, 10 September, 2010 – 22 January 2011
  • Terminal 5, Lazarides, Rathbone Place, London, 8 October – 31 December 2010
  • Hell’s Half Acre, Tunnel 228, London, 12-18 October 2010
  • Le Salon Du Cercle de la Culture a Berlin, CircleCulture Gallery, Berlin, 25 June - 23 July 2010
  • Peeping Tom, Vegas Gallery, London, 18 February - 28 March 2010
  • The Grifters, Lazarides, Rathbone Place, London, 4 December 2009 – 16 January 2010
  • Up Against the Wall, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Athens, 15th October - 14 November 2009
  • Grow Up, Lazarides, Rathbone Place, London, 15 May - 30 June 2009
  • The Outsiders, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, 5 December 2008 - 25 January 2009
  • The Outsiders, 282 Bowery, New York City, 26 September – 17 October 2008
  • Contemporary Displays, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1 July – 30 September 2008
  • Printed Matter, Eleven, London, 21 February – 22 March 2008
  • 3 Portraits, Novas Contemporary Urban Space, 73-81 Southwark Bridge Road, London, 21 Jan - 1 Feb 2008
  • Santa’s Ghetto, Bethlehem, 3 – 24 December 2007
  • The Outsiders, Lazarides Gallery, Newcastle, 30 November 2007 – 31 January 2008
  • The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London, 15 – 25 November 2007
  • The Naked Portrait, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 29 September - 9 December 2007
  • The Naked Portrait, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 8 June - 2 September 2007
  • BP Portrait Award, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, 31 March - 20 May 2007
  • Contemporary Displays, National Portrait Gallery, London, 15 March – 30 September 2007
  • Works on Paper, Eleven, London, 11 January - 10 February 2007
  • BP Portrait Award, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum, London, 25 November 2006 - 3 February 2007
  • 400 Years of British Portraiture, Philip Mould, London, 22 November 2006 - 1 February 2007
  • BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, 5 June to 17 September 2006
  • Figurations 2, Eleven, London, 27 April - 26 May 2006
  • BP National Portrait Gallery, The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 17 December 2005 - 12 March 2006
  • BP Portrait Award, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, 6 October - 27 November 2005
  • Garrick Milne Portrait Prize, Christie's, London, September 2005
  • Figurations 1, Eleven, London, 7 October - 10 November 2005
  • Historical Portraits, Grosvenor House Art Fair, London, June 2005
  • National Portrait Gallery, London, 15 June - 25 September 2005
  • Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, 27 February - 26 March 2005
  • BP Portrait Award, Aberdeen Art Gallery, 12 December 2004 to 22 January 2005
  • Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 2 October - 13 November 2004
  • National Portrait Gallery, London, 17 June - 19 September 2004
  • Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2004, London, 1 - 30 May 2004
  • Royal Society of Portrait Painters 2003, London, May 2003
  • ArtAid 2002, Bloomberg Space, London, October 2002
  • British Portraiture (curator: Philip Mould), Historical Portraits, London, November - December 2001
  • Summer Show, Blains Fine Art (Haunch of Venison since 2001), London, June - July 1999

External links

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