The Last Person Made Famous by a Painting?

[stlukesguild]

The Last Person Made Famous by a Painting?

Hmmm...? I'll need some time to think. Anyone you can think of made famous by a painting more recently?

Perhaps:

 

[john]

From the article in the link.......Andrew Wyeth I like this Helga.

Lucian Freud? Yuck, no thanks. Offensively ugly. I don't get it. Who likes that stuff? I would rather look at a Cy Twombly. But I don't like any nudes. I aint got no class and that's fine by me.

 

[Bongo]

you mean someone who wasn't famous until a portrait was made of them, and then that portrait made them famous?

The Afghanistan peasant girl with the piercing eyes - only that was a photograph. The mugshot of that handsome (mix race ?) black guy - Jeremy Meeks Lots (and lots) of unknowns becoming famous thru tic tok, instagram etc. ---painting? not so much.

Painting for the most part is narrowcast - not broadcast. TO be famous you have to be known by - today's standards - a million plus people.

Grant Woods - American Gothic. I think one was a dentist and the other his sister or something - neither one farmers. They don't have a name attached to their portrait.

Shepard Fairey's "Obey" painting/poster - which is a stylized version of Andre the Giant,

Vladimir Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl (green lady)

 

[stlukesguild]

you mean someone who wasn't famous until a portrait was made of them, and then that portrait made them famous?

Yes. There are lots of portraits of famous people: Warhol's Marilyn, Will Cotton's Katy Perry, Chuck Close's Kate Moss, etc... And I'm not including self-portraits, portraits of the artist's family, or sitters famous within the artist's oeuvre... but pretty much known outside.

The Afghanistan peasant girl with the piercing eyes - only that was a photograph.

Yes, I suspect there are more than a few photographic portraits that made the person famous. Beyond the Afghan girl I immediately think of the Vietnamese girl running from napalm.

I made a brief survey of my digital files on portrait and figure painters with little luck beyond Freud's painting of Sue Tilley or the Benefits Survivor Sleeping.

 

[bethany]

*do you mean "the Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" ?

I made a brief survey of my digital files on portrait and figure painters with little luck beyond Freud's painting of Sue Tilley or the Benefits Survivor Sleeping.

 

[Marc]

Freud's is from the mid nineties. I can't think of one more recent.

 

[Hermes2020]

Peter Schlesinger was 18 when David Hockney painted him getting out of the art dealer Nicholas Wilder's pool in 1966. Peter became well known in his own right later in life, but he was unknown when David met him and made him part of his circle.

 

[Artyczar]

Fascinating thread. I only wanted to say I like both Freud and Twombly.

 

[Terri]

I can't think of anyone particularly recent, no. But in the spirit of this:

"you mean someone who wasn't famous until a portrait was made of them, and then that portrait made them famous?

Yes."

There's Sylvette David, who infamously became "the girl with the ponytail" or "ponytail girl" once Picasso met her through chance and began to paint her. It ended up being several paintings over a period of months. She was young and had a boyfriend who designed chairs at a studio in the town where Picasso lived at the time, and Picasso liked the chair and bought one.

A link to her site:

I was Sylvette

She went on to become a painter herself and did ceramics, too, I believe. Being "ponytail girl" didn't hurt her at all.

 

[Bongo]

Frida Kahlo. Her husband was famous but she wasn't until her self-portraits. I would guess that there a

re millions of people today that recognize her face from her paintings without knowing her name.

 

[Bongo]

Prints of Tretchikoff's painting "Chinese Girl" popularly known as "The Green Girl" was one of the first art prints to be mass-marketed. I remember as a little kid when I first saw it at Woolworths (five and dime). I was completely enamored with it. The original sold in 2013 for $1.5million.
Here it is with woman who posed for it back in the day.

 

[Mississippi Hippie]

Katy Perry is famous ... but cotton made her more Art.

 

[stlukesguild]

Katy came upon Will Cotton's paintings of "Candyland"...

... and her video for the song, California Gurls was inspired by these... as well as by Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the game Candyland. Will Cotton was hired as the artistic director of the video:

Cotton admitted that in spite of the fact that the world of Katy Perry's pop music is far removed from that of the "art world" circles in which he worked, the video... and later Perry's commissions of portraits by Cotton... pushed him into a whole new level of fame.

 

[Mississippi Hippie]

You started a dance party at my house!

 

[Bongo]

I think you flipped the question to - "What famous person made the artist well known for having the artist do a portrait of them?"

 

[stlukesguild]

I think you flipped the question to - "What famous person made the artist well known for having the artist do a portrait of them?"

There's probably quite a few fit that model. Freud's painting of "Big Sue" dates from the mid-1990s. I can't think of a more recent example of a person becoming well-known thanks to having had their portrait painted/drawn/sculpted.

 

[Bongo]

I think you flipped the question to - "What famous person made the artist well known for having the artist do a portrait of them?"

There's probably quite a few fit that model. Freud's painting of "Big Sue" dates from the mid-1990s. I can't think of a more recent example of a person becoming well-known thanks to having had their portrait painted/drawn/sculpted.

Shepard Fairy was known before he made the Obama poster, but that made him a super star.