After receiving numerous polarized comments about his official portrait of King Charles III, artist Jonathan Yeo revealed that the King has expressed approval of the work.
Speaking on Hello magazine's Right Royal podcast, Yeo shared that the King had seen a mostly finished version of the painting in November last year and smiled approvingly. "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," said Yeo.
Queen Camilla was even more enthusiastic. Yeo told the Boston Globe: "When she looked at it and smiled straight away, I thought, 'OK, phew! That's the important one.'"
Yeo had previously painted the late Prince Philip in 2008, and Queen Camilla in 2014, as well as Tony Blair, Sir David Attenborough, and Malala Yousafzai. His official portrait of King Charles III-the first since the king's coronation in May last year-was unveiled on May 14. It has since sparked a flurry of comments due to Yeo's extensive use of red, and has been described as "horrifying," and has led to numerous conspiracy theories such as alleged links to Satanism and the Illuminati.
Yeo explains that the reason for the red background was that he wanted to "tone down" the bright red of the King's Welsh Guard uniform. He told Hello: "The red was inspired by the Welsh Guards, but I wanted the painting to be a little more contemporary and not get in the way of seeing the face and the personality. The color was an early experiment and then I sketched it out and worked on the face, and the face and background worked so well."
Yeo says he is unfazed by the criticism since the King has already approved of the work. He also claims to enjoy the resulting conspiracy theories: "It's strangely reassuring to know a painted portrait can still spark so many conversations in an image-saturated age."
