Jonathan Yeo (born 1970) is one of Britain's best-known portrait
painters. Over more than a decade, he has gained an international
reputation for painting some of the most famous faces of our age: Nicole
Kidman, Dennis Hopper, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Fry, Damien Hirst, Sienna
Miller, Rupert Murdoch, Grayson Perry, Tony Blair and Prince Philip are
just a selection of the many household names who have sat for Yeo.
Renowned for his distinctive, highly figurative canvases and
controversial collages, he employs a range of media and techniques to
create a diverse body of work that expands the traditions of portraiture
while examining contemporary perceptions of beauty, celebrity and power.
Coinciding with a retrospective exhibition at London's National Portrait
Gallery, The Many Faces of Jonathan Yeo is the first major publication
on the artist. Featuring his most popular paintings, drawings, collages
and prints, the book also presents several new canvases made especially
for the show. Alongside his intimate portraits of well-known sitters are
dramatic and unsettling studies of cosmetic surgery patients that
document the compulsive and painful pursuit of physical perfection.
Dozens of studio shots and photographs of works in progress reveal Yeo's
working practice and chart the process of creating individual portraits.
Numerous contributions from his subjects lift the lid on what it is like
to be scrutinized by the artist's exacting, forensic eye and to have
oneself captured on canvas.
