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Portrait
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Posted
Without identifying it - what do you say about a portrait on the gallery that's based on an historical figure, but looks ..... like someone else entirely? What can one say? Well painted, up to a point, but - a mile away from any representation of the person portrayed, while betraying an uncomfortable closeness to someone else entirely?
I think one ignores it; because to do otherwise would offend; but ... it looks nothing like its subject from the neck up. Oh dear. So much dedicated work - so very far away. I can't even say don't base your portraits on photographs, because something else happened here (and the subject is no longer with us). I think what did happen was that the painter imposed upon his subject a political position he would never have held, in which case it was misrepresenting his subject, and fell too much in love with the iconic personality.
I don't want to criticize him on the Gallery for that, but ........... I do think it was a big mistake; and something of a miscarriage of justice. Or perhaps just an ill-judged portrait? I don't know - it won't be hard to find the subject.
Posted
It is actually an oil painting.
I see that she (Sam) was once a storyboard artist which may account for the reason that, as Linda says, and which I also picked up on, has a somewhat graphic quality about it.
It’s not a style that excites me personally, but it does have some good qualities within it.
I’ve seen a lot worse on here!
Posted
More to the point ,it actually does not look like him. I would think copyright isn’t an issue .its not a copy of the Sutherland painting that actually portrayed him warts and all hence the reason his wife Clementine destroyed it . Copying anything is like Chinese whispers or the wearing of the ring in Lord of the rings it dilutes and alters . So I’m not at all impressed. More like Trump.
Clementine—who worked very hard to preserve her husband's legacy both during his career and after his death—took the blame for the portrait going missing and claimed she burned it herself. In 1978, when Sutherland discovered the paintinghad been burned, he called it “without question an act of vandalism.”8 Nov 2016
Edited
by Sylvia Evans