A new painting of the Downton Abbey favorite went on show today at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Forty-two-year-old artist James Lloyd said Dame Maggie Smith, 78, had been reluctant to sit for the portrait. “Her opening words were, ‘Poor you.’ This was the opposite to my own feelings,” he said. If you’re in London, do stop by the gallery’s Room 35 to have a look; it apparently strikes a commanding presence, befitting the subject’s legend.
Tag Archives: Paintings
Stephen Saban
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Stephen Saban
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British photographer David Bailey will always be worshipped for the iconic black-and-white portraits he took in London’s Swinging Sixties of such pop-culture legends as The Beatles, Michael Caine, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, and the gangster Kray Brothers. But now, at 73, Bailey’s turned his hand to painting, with his first-ever gallery show, “Hitler Killed the Duck,” hanging now through November 12 at the Scream gallery on Burton Street in London’s Mayfair. About the name of his show, Bailey says, “The Germans bombed the cinema that I went to see Bambi and cartoons in with a V2 rocket in 1944, so I thought Hitler had killed all the Disney characters.” Interesting factoids about the artist: He has had four wives, won of whom was French beauty Catherine Deneuve, from 1965 to 1972; he doesn’t eat mammals, drink alcohol, or exercise; he contracted psittacosis when he was sharing a house in London with model girlfriend Penelope Tree, a UFO-detecting machine belonging to the Stones’ Brian Jones, and 60 parrots; and it’s no coincidence that after meeting WOW’s Fenton Bailey one day in London and commenting on how much he liked the name Fenton, he would later give that name to his son. (Image via Dangerous Minds)
