Did the artist look at the King's portrait and say "hold my beer"

[MrsLeonFarrell]

Tatler has a new portrait, allegedly of the Princess of Wales, on its cover. I know it's been a while but I'm pretty sure most of us remember what she looks like.

Link to BBC article laced with sarcasm.

BBC News - Kate Tatler portrait prompts strong reaction online
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-69049830

I can't see how anyone would look at the artist's website and think, 'This artist, with her particular interests and background experience, is just the right person to capture Kate'.

It reminds me of the case of the Diana statue. The sculptor makes it clear on his website that he is particularly drawn by the power of the male form and is not so inspired by the idea of sculpting the female form. Even given his back catalogue and passions, someone still thought - you'll do!

I think the artist is a Republican😂 It is the type of painting I would paint if anyone asked me.

I love your title, OP. 😆

It's so crude of me to say this, but the King's portrait looks like a massacre on canvas. It's like a bloodbath with the king's face superimposed onto it.

And Kate... well, the artist's work is SO worth looking at. 'Context is everything' comes to mind. I'd hang ALL of her work on my wall. The portrait of Kate is an anomaly.

This actually looks like Meghan.

The painting just had to look like her, not necessarily be good . She should have traced the face from a photo of Ai image and then added some artistic alterations. 3 weeks isn’t long however I used to watch watercolour challenge and people could do wonderful paintings in an afternoon.

"LEGO! THEY'RE ALL MADE OF FUCKING LEGO!"

(Including Princess Leia here.)

Hannah Uzor was thrown under a bus for this one as editors must have known the turnaround time was impossible. As a mother of three young kids, 3 weeks is absolutely no time to work. She probably painted the entire thing over a weekend while the kids were away with granny. Tatler knew it would turn out awful but took delight at the fact RF can't retaliate due to the fact they picked a POC artist best known for her work regarding African diaspora.

All that may be true, but I also think it's a bit infantilising to suggest she had no agency at all. I'm freelance myself, and you have to learn not to accept contracts you don't have time for, and to say when it's not working out or you need more time. If she was unable to do that, that would be because of lack of experience, but she's responsible for it.

Also I'm guessing a commission like that would be reasonably well-paid? You have to use some of the money you earn for childcare, to do a professional job.

I do think it's possible that if they were deliberately trying to have a go at Kate, they could have reassured the artist "yay, it's totally great, we love it" when it's clearly not and she was swayed by that. But again as a creative you have to keep control of your work and if it's not up to standard that's on you.

Her more famous Sarah Bonetta painting is better and more finished - but it's based very directly on one photo.

PoC don't need to be protected. They ate capable of saying no.

Absolutely agree, but an offer like this is almost impossible to refuse for any artist. Especially with whatever monetary sums and potential exposure was at stake. I credit her bravery to accept even though it was almost certain that it wouldn't end well. But as a graduate artist, she could not have known or anticipated it. She presumably only had enough experience painting pieces as part of her course and didn't have the work flow for insanely tight turnarounds like 3 weeks.

Tatler should have known this, and they probably did, but still went ahead. If she had 10+ years of professional experience, taking commissions and exhibiting shows, then she could have predicted how much time it would take her to produce work and accepted or declined accordingly. This has nothing to do with her ethnic background but purely the lack of experience. Tatler exploited this under the guise of diversity and knowing it would be extremely difficult for the RF to respond.

I didn't mean it in that way!

"Hold my beer" in the context I was using means, "hang on I can go one better than that". In this case I was attempting a light hearted comment that the artist saw everyone divided over Charles's portrait and decided to produce something that would create even more comments. No punching at all.

Thanks for the link. I really don't undertake why on earth Tatler thought she was the right artist to paint Catherine or why she said yes. Her other work is so completely different.

It reminds me strongly of the time I asked a friend who created beautiful abstract pieces to paint a tiger for my brother's birthday. It did not go well.

I'm not sure I believe the Tatler conspiracy theories but they have certainly come out of this looking like they wouldn't know good art if it bit them.

Why on earth didn't they ask her to paint Meghan? Having looked at the artist's other work I think they could have done something really interesting off the back of the Nigeria visit.

This was an interesting read. It’s all about the discourse, cultural aspects etc according to the writer. I do see Kate’s steely reserve in the portrait.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

This article. Can’t get the link to work on my phone for some reason.

At school we weren't allowed to paint from photos, I can see why now. Tatler is a rag anyways.

"Princess Kate"????

yeah I liked it too. Mainly because I love the colour red and I guess it reminded me of a Rothko painting. Or indeed that Ghostbusters meme that went around.

The Kate one?

No words.

Tizzwazz, I disagree with the article, a portrait has has to reassemble the person in question, particularly in this case. Ideally it would be a flattering portrait. The other portrait of Catherine did, it just wasn’t flattering. It is the most important thing with portrait artistry. The rest of her painting is ok she just hasn’t got the figure or the face right and it’s a shame no one told her. She clearly is talented when looking at her other works of art.

It's awful, I wonder if she really dislikes PoW. She's even given her a thick waist. She also has one wide shoulder with a breast on that side, but the other side has a narrow shoulder with no breast. It's amateur.

There's something odd going on with her neck on her left, too. (On the right as you look at it.) Though I wonder if that was some retouching in the publishing process, not the artist.

So bad. Mouth and jaw are all wrong, tiara’s on wonky. It’s not naive, it’s inept.

Resemblance isn't important if an artist is very established and has a huge body of work in a certain style. In this case, the artist is a new graduate and mostly self taught. So people can't argue the flaws in the painting are purely conceptual in nature. The flaws are there because she's simply not a very good artist. You can see that she struggles with anatomy like hands, proportions, fabric folds and details. She skipped the ribbon rosette on the lower right side of the original outfit because it was presumably too complex to paint.

Another bit of evidence that Tatler knowingly threw the artist under the bus as part of their rift with K&W is that they're making no effort whatsoever to protect her on social media. The comments on their Instagram page are absolutely vile, filled with racism and hate. There is no moderation, no deletion and no replies. The artist is being hounded by trolls and racists, and I refuse to believe that Tatler editors didn't know that would happen once they deliberately publicise a very sub-par piece of art as "amazing and cover worthy". As contrast, they would never allow one of their inner circle friends (eg. one of those aristocratic Cotswolds Wives) to be publicly humiliated the same way as Hannah Uzor.

Surely the artist herself should have realised that three weeks was impossible and either re negotiated or turned down the commission. Much better that than be publically humiliated.

It is unspeakably bad.

'Resemblance isn't important if an artist is very established and has a huge body of work in a certain style.'

Dunno, I think if you're painting a portrait of a specific person it should be recognisable as that person. Freud's portrait of QEII wasn't flattering, but it was recognisably HM. This portrait of Kate is, well, amateur.

I feel very sorry for the artist. Looking at her other work, she does have talent, so I'd be inclined to question what Tatler were playing at.

I think some have her a wrong photo. That is Megan