When Jonathan Yeo unveiled his official painting of King Charles last week, titled ‘HM King Charles III,’ it took the world — and the internet — by storm.
The use of the color red on the 8-foot canvas became the subject of thousands of memes and TikTok videos, a reaction the artist, who has painted several members of the royal family during his career, had not anticipated.
In the ‘A Right Royal Podcast,’ we heard about some of the humorous reactions that entertained the world — and his two daughters — as well as what the King really thought of it.
Jonathan discussed his four-hour-long sittings with the King, some of which took place before he ascended to the throne, and how the Monarch responded to his use of the color red during their last sitting in November.
“When I showed it to him back in November, when it was sort of three-quarters done… certainly the face was done, body was sketched and the colour was mostly pretty much as it was, in the end. If he’d been appalled, I think, I might have rethought it and toned it down a bit. But he didn’t seem that way,” Jonathan reveals.
Why the use of red? The painter explains: “That was something I’d made an early decision to try out. Because I thought it was an interesting colour and you want it to be interesting.
Did he know the use of the colour would be so divisive? “I didn’t think it was a risky thing to do, I thought it was an interesting colour,” he says.
“It was a more formal commission than I’m used to,” adds Jonathan of the high-profile job. The painter was given a specific size by The Drapers Company “because I had to match some other royal portraits they have in their hall”. He was also told that Charles must be in uniform, “the Welsh Guard’s tunic with its bright red colour.” So, his goal was “to figure out how to incorporate that.”
