‘Gadzooks! I hope that’s not MY portrait’
ANXIOUS for approval of his work in progress, artist Stuart Pearson Wright asked Prince Philip if he’d caught his likeness.
‘I bloody well hope not!’ Philip snapped back.
The exchange summed up an unhappy experience for both sitter and artist which has resulted in the finished full-length portrait, described by the artist himself as ‘flat and nasty’, being kept from public view.
Instead, Mr Pearson Wright used the work as a basis to produce a study of Prince Philip’s head for the Royal Society of Arts, which commissioned the painting.
The Prince, who has been RSA president for 50 years, personally selected Mr Pearson Wright, 27, winner of the 2001 BP Portrait Award, for the project. Recalling the first sitting, Mr Pearson Wright said: ‘All of a sudden this little old man shuffled into the room.
‘I’m not sure if he was wearing carpet slippers, but that was my impression. I tried to make conversation and asked him about his kids and Greece and his upbringing, but he was not especially forthcoming.’
Philip inspected the canvas after the session and exclaimed: ‘Gadzooks!’
‘I wouldn’t say it didn’t go well — it’s just that his own response was less than complimentary,’ Mr Pearson Wright said.
‘I wouldn’t say I’m used to people being so direct with their views.’
Saturday, July 26, 2003