“Sorry, who is she meant to be?” The new Tatler portrait of the Princess of Wales is “egregiously, intolerably, jaw-hits-the-floor bad”, says Alastair Sooke, the Telegraph‘s Chief Art Critic. Here’s an excerpt.
Sorry, who is she meant to be? The Princess of Wales? You could have fooled me. Even by the standards of modern royal portraiture (and there have been many abominable likenesses of senior members of our royal family produced over the past century), Tatler’s new cover image – an “exclusive” portrait of the Princess of Wales by the British-Zambian artist Hannah Uzor – is egregiously, intolerably, jaw-hits-the-floor bad.
Whatever you made of Jonathan Yeo’s recently unveiled crimson portrait of King Charles III – which, as various wags observed, looked as if it had come pre-attacked with tomato soup by Just Stop Oil protesters – at least the damn thing resembled its subject.
But this? I’ve spent the past hour or so – time, incidentally, that I will never get back – scrutinising Uzor’s “likeness”, and, still, I cannot divine any flicker of resemblance between it and the woman it’s supposed to depict. At first, my editor thought it was meant to represent Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; its subject’s smirk made me think, initially, of Anne Robinson fronting The Weakest Link.
Has there been a flatter, more lifeless royal portrait in living memory? (It’s no surprise to learn that Uzor based her picture on video footage of, rather than personal sittings with, her subject. And be aware, this is not an official commission.) Beneath a Lego-like helmet of unmodulated, monotonously brown ‘hair’, this Princess of Wales has as much charisma as a naff figurine atop a wedding cake.
She holds herself with the bored bearing of an air stewardess about to begin an in-flight safety demonstration – which is additionally awkward, given that this was a job once performed by Catherine’s mother (a fact that, in years gone by, reportedly attracted the ridicule of William’s snobbish friends).
The Telegraph poll has had over 16,000 responses, 98% of whom said they don’t like the portrait.
It would of course be extremely uncharitable to suggest that the “British-Zambian artist Hannah Uzor” was a diversity commission by Tatler. But it would at least be an excuse for presenting such a dire piece of portraiture.
Worth reading in full.
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Its crap. You would be forgiven for thinking its a joke.
It could almost pass as a tribute for Mother’s Day that her own daughter painted for her. And she’s only at Primary school..That’s the only instance I’d be impressed!
Perhaps they can get a refund, but then that might look racist.
Lifeless
Do we white people all look the same to others?
What white people, are there still a few of us left?
It’s not even that good. Slightly worse than the red smear that is Charles’ ‘portrait’
It probably was by a ‘subject’ who couldn’t give a rats a*se about it really but knew the magazine would pay a fair wack for her to have a stab at it.
All the crap about doing it from photos though, couldn’t she have got a live sitting as Kate isn’t exactly rushed off her feet recently.
I would have no hesitation in stating that the person responsible for this amateurish dawb is NOT an artist by any remote interpretation of the word artist.
There’s no need to get too convoluted…
It’s Crap.
It just looks like a high school had a ‘Paint Princess Kate’ competition and this is the winner from a range of 15yr olds’ efforts. So if a secondary school pupil could equal or surpass that craptastic excuse for a ‘portrait’ for a few quid in prize money, I wonder how much this alleged professional portrait artist got paid. I also thought that King Charles one was pants.
Actually I was going to make a similar comment Mogs but decided not to because there clearly are some school children who can paint well. I find this piece of rubbish an insult and not just to Kate Windsor but also to the population of this country. Hopefully Tatler are nicely out of pocket for this garbage.
I think this is a good illustration of what can happen when one doesn’t employ the best person for the job based on merit ( please god, let there have been better candidates for the job than this! ) but instead goes down the box-ticking DEI route. Fortunately nobody was physically harmed in the making of this piece of crapola, but employ the same approach with pilots, surgeons, engineers, for example, then you’re very possibly placing your life in the hands of somebody sub-par who is only there as the result of a woketard’s tick-box exercise. All the better candidates having been ditched due to them being too ‘imperialist white supremacist’. It’s potentially a real problem.
Yes when you look at Kate Middleton it is a very pleasing experience. When you look at this you feel nothing.
twins
Don’t hold back.———- I am as blind as bat without my lenses in and I thought it looked like my Aunt Marigold. When I put in the lenses it now looks like Danny Kaye.
Given that the public have not seen or heard from the Princess since Dec 28th, maybe this is not simply incompetence but part of a wider plan?
She’s working in the same chip shop in Wigan with Elvis Presley And Lord Lucan.
This makes the line of year 8 artwork on the fence outside our local school look like the Frick’s Rembrandt collection. So she’s a black British-Zambian artist but completely useless at painting.
What qualified her get the job then I wonder…? It’s a complete and utter mystery..
I can only imagine what Kate herself must think of it..LOL. Behind closed doors, of course. In public she’d have to put her game face on and do that faux gracious thing they all have to display until they get home again.
Not much mystery: she’s not white.
I was being sarcastic..
Off – T
https://www.globalresearch.ca/wef-klaus-schwab-resigning/5857835
The fuerher is resigning next year. Some Nog called Brende is taking over.
Bliar is going to be pfizzed.
Regarding our elected politicians, bad as most of them are, the very worst attend Davos and listen to the neofascist/neocommunist dribble of UNelected twerps such as Schwab.
If there is any MP with an iota of integrity, he/she should promote a Bill to ban elected politicians from having anything to do with the WEF, and a sacking offence if they disobey.
Off-T
Dr. Pierre Kory Reveals Why Ivermectin Had to Be Destroyed
Before COVID, Ivermectin was celebrated as a “miracle drug” for its role in bringing river blindness to the brink of extinction.
But the propagandists told you it was a dangerous “horse dewormer.”
Why?
1.) Ivermectin threatened the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the so-called C19 vaccines. If Ivermectin had proven to be an effective treatment, then EUA for C19 injections could have been nullified.
2.) Undermined vaccine uptake. “If ivermectin would have found to be effective, what would be the uptake of those vaccines?” asked Dr. Pierre Kory. “It would plummet.”
3.) Ivermectin would sabotage the profits from the C19 injections. “They knew it would destroy the market. And that market, probably over a few years, is north of $100 billion.”
4.) It threatened “the market for the competing pipeline patented pharmaceuticals like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir and Remdesivir, and they’ve made many billions off of those.”
5.) Too cheap to make money off of. Dr. Michael Turner says Ivermectin costs merely “$24 to save one life from COVID.”
6.) “This pandemic would have been over if everybody was on ivermectin, and that’s why they had to destroy it.”
@NaomiWolfOfficial
Even simpler: it costs 25p.
Off-T
NEW – EU Commission chief proposes a “new structure” dubbed the “European Democracy Shield” to detect and remove online content from alleged “enemies of democracies.”
Join: Son Of JFK
More bloody meddling fronted by Fond of Lying.
As if the EU was a “democracy”. ——Try telling that to Poland who get fined half a million Euros a day for daring to keep using coal in the so called “democracy”
Or when there is a referendum with a result they don’t like.
Alistaire Sooke is absolutely right to excoriate this Utterly Talentless Female African “artist” Uzor’s sly but hamfisted attempt to paint African Meghan as the Princess of Wales. One of Alistair Sooke’s comments summed it up perfectly as “a naff figurine atop a wedding cake”.
At least Jonathan Yeo’s portrait of the king showed his true artistic gift in portraying the king’s face and hands, before he made it all ridiculous by daubing pink & red paint all over it. What an idiot! He even got the butterfly wrong— there are no monarch butterflies in Britain, though the internet is awash with MK Ultra Monarch Mind-Control references.
Shame on that magazine Tatler for featuring such rubbish on their cover.
“This species is the largest butterfly seen in the British Isles, and is also one of our rarest migrants.”
https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?species=plexippus
Monarch butterfly blown across Atlantic to Dorset – BBC News
SEE THE GLOBAL MAP OF MONARCH BUTTERFLIES, which does not include the British Isles:
Global Distribution • Monarch Joint Venture
“Monarch dispersal across the Atlantic was closely tied with the availability of milkweed larval host plants.
Both Gomphocarpus fruticosus and Asclepias currassavica were prominently established in the northern Africa and Iberian Peninsula before initial monarch sightings east of the Atlantic Ocean. More recent anthropogenically introduced host plants in Southern Spain are thriving and seem to be expanding into the Mediterranean region where a favorable climate and growing conditions only appear to be encouraging the milkweed spread (specifically Gomphocarpus physocarpus).
With established host plants, MONARCH BUTTERFLIES THAT WERE BLOWN OFF THEIR MIGRATORY PATHWAY FROM NORTH AMERICA TO MEXICO could still successfully colonize areas where host plants were available, like southern Spain and Portugal.
While larvae or butterflies could have hitchhiked across the Atlantic, rare monarch sightings on the coast of the UK, likely CAUSED BY WINDS BLOWING VAGRANT MONARCHS ACROSS THE SEA [as happens with birds], show that human interference is not necessary for monarchs to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The Mediterranean basin’s environment and host plant distribution is favorable for monarchs, and an increase in resident monarchs around the Iberian Peninsula is not farfetched.”
Thanks, that will be why it is referred to as “one of our rarest migrants” which should not be confused with none at all.
The whole point is that an insect blown across the Atlantic by storms once in a blue moon is NOT a BRITISH BUTTERFLY, nor does it represent BRITISH BUTTERFLIES, which one would expect to be featured in the royal portrait of a BRITISH KING at his own request.
Now run along and whine incessantly about being prevented from obsessively stalking The Princess of Wales about her PRIVATE MEDICAL CONDITION.
Shame on you, and all who similarly complain about such trivia! Have you nothing more important to think about? Why not direct your attentions to some rag like the Tatler?
What trivia, butterfly migration? I was simply offering up alternative information.
Your comments indicate a fixation with the “Royal” family.
Liar! You’re the one who is obsessed with sticking your ugly nose into someone else’s private medical records, for no other reason than Ghoulish Curiosity, whining on & on about it for weeks afterwards, as I’ve said elsewhere.
I’m glad the Editors of The Daily Sceptic took firm steps to protect her from stalkers like you, and I will waste no more time responding to your creepy provocations.
You seem to be desperate to attribute opinions to me that I’ve never expressed, accompanied by a fanatical defensiveness of the “Royal” family.
Are there any artists today with the skill to produce a truthful and pleasing portrait of anyone?
They all seem more interested in installing ‘installations’ that feature toilets, rusty pipes, beds or mere garbage picked out of litter bins.
……. ’you can’t be serious!’
I see 2 possibilities:
The artist set out initially to do a caricature painting, then changed her mind halfway through, or…
The artist set up a canvas in Madame Tussauds and proceeded to paint her wax-work (badly).
Showed it to Mrs ToF who has a very sharp eye. “What’s that?”.
Whatever it is, it hasn’t triggered the comments to be removed.
Yes I was tempted to refer to that unfortunate incident
Sssh
Reminds of the botched painting in a Spanish church.
https://nypost.com/2016/03/12/infamous-botched-jesus-painting-now-a-major-tourist-attraction/
“a blurry potato”— that really made me laugh!
Oh I remember that
It’s a culturally enriched portrait.
Looks like someone has just taken their sunglasses off on the Costa del booze and had too much sangria.
Still so many unanswered questions about Diana Princess of Wales; did she walk into the Ambulance; who was the journalist shot with his car torched claiming suicide etc.
What? Is that true about a journalist?
A load of cobblers is still a load of cobblers no matter who did it. To be quite honest I did wonder if it was done by the woman who “restored” that ancient painting in a Church a few years ago. After a few seconds I realised it could not have been unless the woman had a miraculous transition into even worse.
However, it really is not as bad as Diane Abbot’s Portrait which you paid for. All hail the Socialists. This time round will Starmers face be even flatter, his eyes more dead in the painting he commissions from your wages?
I remember Rolf Harris used to do his paintings on TV shows, and you had to only see them from very far a way to see that it as an Aborigine sitting under a gum tree or something, but once you got closer it just looked like lashings of paint. I think Rolf’s lashings of paint would have been better than this portrait.
Harris is an unmentionable, deservedly so.
Before his disgrace he produced a portrait of the Queen from sittings and it was abominable. I hope she burnt it, and it’s a shame that the Princess of Wales won’t get the opportunity to do the same with that travesty by an alleged ‘artist’.
I just read she “went through over 189,000 photos of her to “capture her likeness.”. Would she not have been better making one trip to Specsavers?
Once you understand it’s intended to be paired with this portrait of William the structure, playfulness and genius of the artist really shines..
I was just having a look at what AI would produce for “Catherine Princess of Wales”. Creepy stuff.
https://deepai.org/machine-learning-model/text2img
At least she looks white, unlike some other ridiculous AI efforts to portray white historical figures as black Africans thanks to woke input.
Come to think of it, Kate is shown as rather dark-skinned in that portrait. Maybe the ‘artist’ gets her ideas from AI, or she got her mixed up with Meghan (43% Nigerian genes).
It is terrible! What, with the appalling red rendition of Charlie, the best place for these two ‘art’ offerings is Buck House attic. Lock them away securely…and hope they don’t start to age…
To all the ‘This is so bad it could have been created by a five year-old’ please upload your own masterpieces.
Beyond the ‘not the greatest depiction ever created’ (agreed) we are into the realms of pure racism and xenophobia.
Idiot.
Immensely superior paintings and sculptures have been slashed, sprayed with paint, decapitated, toppled to the ground and thrown into rivers by “pure racists” like you.
DEI strikes again.
Tatler of all people. We are not allowed to have our art now it seems. To me, it looks like a mural you might expect to see on a shack wall somewhere in downtown Lusaka, it’s folk art, maybe appreciated in its place, but flogged to us on the cover of a snotty magazine, no thanks. Feels like a deliberate undermining of its subject. I just hope it gave her something to laugh at. Maybe pinned to the fridge with a magnet.
Seen better sellotaped to the fridge door.
It epitomises the dumbing down and destruction of just about everything in public life. The bar is set so low means that we can no longer have anything ‘nice’. The only surprise and consolation is that her sash isn’t rainbow coloured and the artist didn’t make her one of the ‘Global Majority’ to make her more inclusive…
It took me a while to work out who it was supposed to be as at first I couldn’t see how it was in any way like Diana, Then I didn’t think it looked anything like Camilla.
I clean forgot about the latest incumbent, just goes to show what an impression she’s made on me / us.