Jonathan Yeo is one of the world’s leading portrait artists, so he needs absolutely no introductions, yet we wanted to pay a tribute to his work that has definitely influenced us all. Jonathan Yeo (born in London in 1970) is a British artist who rose to international prominence in his early 20’s as a contemporary portraitist, responsible for paintings of Dennis Hopper, Prince Philip, Erin O’Connor, Tony Blair, and David Cameron among his sitters.

Yeo taught himself to paint in his twenties while recovering from Hodgkin’s Disease. In the early 2000s, he became known for his contemporary realist portraits of well-known figures.

His unauthorised 2007 portrait of George W. Bush, created from cuttings of pornographic magazines brought him worldwide notoriety, shown in London, New York and Los Angeles. In 2013 a display of Yeo’s portraits opened at the National Portrait Gallery, London, including works portraying sitters such as Damien Hirst, Kevin Spacey, Idris Elba, Grayson Perry, Helena Bonham Carter, Doreen Lawrence and Malala Yousafzai. His paintings are included within the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.